Famous Assassinations in World History an Encyclopedia

February 29, 2020 | Author: Anonymous | Category: Politics, Violence
Share Embed Donate


Short Description

Download Famous Assassinations in World History an Encyclopedia...

Description

Famous Assassinations in World History

This page intentionally left blank

Famous Assassinations in World History An Encyclopedia Volume 1: A–P

MICHAEL NEWTON

Copyright 2014 by ABC-CLIO, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Newton, Michael, 1951– Famous assassinations in world history : an encyclopedia / Michael Newton. volumes cm Includes index. ISBN 978-1-61069-285-4 (hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-61069-286-1 (ebook) 1. Assassination—History—Encyclopedias. I. Title. HV6278.N49 2014 364.152'403—dc23 2013031554 ISBN: 978-1-61069-285-4 EISBN: 978-1-61069-286-1 18

17

16

15

14

1

2

3

4

5

This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Preface

xv

Introduction

xvii The Encyclopedia

Volume 1 Abdallah Abderemane, Ahmed (1919–1989) Aguiyi-Ironsi, Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe (1924–1966) al-Banna, Sheikh Hasan Ahmed Abdel Rahman Muhammed (1906–1949) Albert I of Habsburg (1255–1308) al-Din Shah Qajar, Nasser (1831–1896) Alexander I of Serbia (1876–1903) Alexander I of Yugoslavia (1888–1934) Alexander II of Russia (1818–1881) Ali, Muhammad Mansur (1919–1975) Amin, Hafizullah (1929–1979) Aquino, Benigno Simeon, Jr. (1932–1983) Araujo, Manuel Enrique (1865–1913) Argaña Ferraro, Luis María del Corazón de Jesús Dionisio (1932–1999) Assassins Cult (ca. 1092–1275) Bahonar, Mohammad-Javad (1933–1981) Balbinus (165 CE–238 CE) Balewa, Abubakar Tafawa (1912–1966) Bandaranaike, Solomon West Ridgeway Dias (1899–1959) Bautista Gill García del Barrio, Juan (1840–1877) Becket, Thomas (1118–1170) Belzu Humerez, Manuel Isidoro (1808–1865) Beñaran Ordeñana, José Miguel (1949–1978)

1 2 3 6 7 9 10 12 14 15 17 20 21 23 27 28 30 32 34 35 38 40

vi

CONTENTS

Bent, Charles (1799–1847) Bhutto, Benazir (1953–2007) bin Laden, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad (1957–2011) Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev (1945–2001) Bishop, Maurice Rupert (1944–1983) Bobrikov, Nikolay Ivanovich (1839–1904) Bolles, Don (1928–1976) Borgia, Giovanni (1476–1497) Borsellino, Paolo (1940–1992) Boudiaf, Mohamed (1919–1992) Buback, Siegfried (1920–1977) Bush, George Walker (1946– )—Attempted Caesar, Gaius Julius (100 BCE–44 BCE) Caligula (12 CE–41 CE) Ca˘linescu, Armand (1893–1939) Canalejas y Méndez, José (1854–1912) Cánovas del Castillo, Antonio (1828–1897) Carlos I of Portugal (1863–1908) Carranza de la Garza, Venustiano (1859–1920) Carrero Blanco, Luis (1904–1973) Castillo Armas, Carlos (1914–1957) Castro Ruz, Fidel Alejandro (1926– )—Attempted Catargiu, Barbu (1807–1862) Cermak, Anton Joseph (1873–1933) “Chain Murders” (Iran) (1979–1998) Charles VII of Sweden (1130–1167) Chillingworth, Curtis Eugene (1896–1955) Chinnici, Rocco (1925–1983) Chitunda, Jeremias Kalandula (1942–1992) Clinton, William Jefferson (1946– )—Attempted Collins, Michael, Jr. (1890–1922) Danilo I, Prince of Montenegro (1826–1860) Daoud Khan, Mohammed (1909–1978) Delgado Chalbaud Gómez, Carlos (1909–1950) Deligiannis, Theodoros (1820–1905) Dessalines, Jean-Jacques (1758–1806)

42 43 45 48 49 51 52 54 56 57 59 61 65 67 69 71 72 73 75 76 78 80 83 84 87 92 93 94 96 97 99 103 104 106 108 109

CONTENTS

Devi, Phoolan (1963–2001) Ðind¯ic´, Zoran (1952–2003) Doe, Samuel Kanyon (1951–1990) Dollfuss, Engelbert (1892–1934) Dubs, Adolph (1920–1979) Duca, Ion Gheorghe (1879–1933) Dudayev, Dzhokhar Musayevich (1944–1996) Earp, Morgan Seth (1851–1882) Edmund I (922–946) Edward the Martyr (962–978) Eisner, Kurt (1867–1919) Elisabeth of Austria (1837–1898) Eric V of Denmark (1249–1286) Eric XIV of Sweden (1533–1577) Erim, Ismail Nihat (1912–1980) Evers, Medgar Wiley (1925–1963) Ewart-Biggs, Christopher Thomas (1921–1976) Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud (1906–1975) Faisal II of Iraq (1935–1958) Falcón, Ramón Lorenzo (1855–1909) Ferreira do Amaral, João Maria (1803–1849) Ford, Gerald Rudolph, Jr. (1913–2006)—Attempted Foster, Marcus Albert (1923–1973) Franz Ferdinand (1863–1914) Gaddafi, Muammar (1942–2011) Gandhi, Indira Priyadarshini (1917–1984) Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (1869–1948) Gandhi, Rajiv Ratna (1944–1991) García y Moreno y Morán de Buitrón, Gabriel Gregorio Fernando José María (1821–1875) Garfield, James Abram (1831–1881) Gaulle, Charles André Joseph Marie de (1890–1970)—Attempted Gaviria Correa, Guillermo (1962–2003) Gegeen Khan, Emperor Yingzong of Yuan (1303–1323) George I of Greece (1845–1913)

111 113 115 117 118 120 121 125 128 129 131 132 135 136 138 140 142 145 146 148 150 152 155 156 161 164 165 167 169 171 173 176 177 179

vii

viii

CONTENTS

Goebel, William Justus (1856–1900) González Dubón, Eduardo Epaminondas (1945–1993) Goulart, João Belchior Marques (1919–1976) Guerin, Veronica (1958–1996) Guevara, Ernesto “Che” (1928–1967) Guinness, Walter Edward (1880–1944) Gunn, David (1946–1993) Gustav III of Sweden (1746–1792) Habyarimana, Juvénal (1937–1994) Hamidaddin, Yahya Muhammad (1869–1948) Hammarskjöld, Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl (1905–1961) Hampton, Fred (1948–1969) Hani, Martin Thembisile “Chris” (1942–1993) Harald IV of Norway (ca. 1102–1136) Harrison, Carter Henry, Sr. (1825–1893) Hennessy, David C., Jr. (1858–1890) Henriot, Philippe (1889–1944) Henry III of France (1551–1589) Henry IV of France (1553–1610) Heureaux Lebert, Ulises (1845–1899) Heydrich, Reinhard Tristan Eugen (1904–1942) Hitler, Adolf (1889–1945)—Attempted Idiarte Borda, Juan Bautista (1844–1897) Ige, James Ajibola Idowu (1930–2001) Inejiro Asanuma (1898–1960) Jackson, Andrew (1767–1845)—Attempted Jackson, Wharlest, Sr. (1930–1967) James I, King of Scots (1394–1437) John Paul II (1920–2005)—Attempted Kabila, Laurent-Désiré (1939–2001) Kadyrov, Akhmad Abdulkhamidovich (1951–2004) Kahane, Meir (1932–1990) Kapodistrias, Ioannis Antonios (1776–1831) Kapuuo, Clemens (1923–1978) Karume, Sheikh Abeid Amani (1905–1972)

181 183 184 186 188 190 193 195 199 201 202 205 208 209 211 213 215 217 219 220 222 225 231 232 234 237 239 240 241 245 247 249 252 254 255

CONTENTS

Kennedy, John Fitzgerald (1917–1963) Kennedy, Robert Francis (1925–1968) Khoyski Isgender oglu, Fatali Khan (1875–1920) King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968) Ku Klux Klan (1866– ) Lambrakis, Grigoris (1912–1963) Laporte, Pierre (1921–1970) Lennon, John Winston (1940–1980) Letelier del Solar, Marcos Orlando (1932–1976) Lincoln, Abraham (1809–1865) Litvinenko, Alexander Valterovich (1962–2006) Liu, Henry (1932–1984) Long, Huey Pierce, Jr. (1893–1935) Lumumba, Patrice Émery (1925–1961) Luwum, Janani Jakaliya (1922–1977) Madero González, Francisco Ignacio (1873–1913) Maher Pasha, Ahmed (1888–1945) Maïnassara, Ibrahim Baré (1949–1999) Malcolm X (1925–1965) Marat, Jean-Paul (1743–1793) Maskhadov, Aslan Aliyevich (1951–2005) McGlinchey, Dominic (1954–1994) McKinley, William, Jr. (1843–1901) Medici, Giuliano de’ (1453–1478) Mitrione, Daniel Anthony (1920–1970) Moawad, René (1925–1989) Mohammed, Murtala Ramat (1938–1976) Mondlane, Eduardo Chivambo (1920–1969) Moore, Harry Tyson (1905–1951) Moro, Aldo (1916–1978) Moscone, George Richard (1929–1978) Mosharraf, Khaled (1938–1975) Mountbatten, Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George (1900–1979) Mussolini, Benito Amilcare Andrea (1883–1945)

257 264 269 271 277 281 282 285 288 291 295 298 299 302 305 307 309 311 312 317 320 321 323 326 328 330 331 333 335 336 339 341 342 344

ix

x

CONTENTS

Na¯der Sha¯h Afsha¯r (1688–1747) Nadir Shah, Mohammed (1883–1933) Narutowicz, Gabriel (1865–1922) Ndadaye, Melchior (1953–1993) Ngo Dinh Diem (1901–1963) Ngouabi, Marien (1938–1977) Nicholas II (1868–1918) Obama, Barack Hussein, II (1961– )—Attempted/Threatened Obregón Salido, Álvaro (1880–1928) Olympio, Sylvanus Epiphanio (1902–1963) Operation Wrath of God (1972–1992) Osman II (1604–1622) Ouko, John Robert (1931–1990) Palme, Sven Olof Joachim (1927–1986) Pardo Leal, Jaime (1941–1987) Park Chung-hee (1917–1979) Patterson, Albert Leon (1894–1954) Paul I of Russia (1754–1801) Perceval, Spencer (1762–1812) Peter III of Russia (1728–1762) Petliura, Symon Vasylyovych (1879–1926) Philip of Swabia (1177–1208) Philip II of Macedon (359 BCE–336 BCE) Phoenix Program (1965–1972) Pizarro González, Francisco (1471–1541) Pompey the Great (106 BCE–48 BCE) Premadasa, Ranasinghe (1924–1993) Prim y Prats, Juan (1814–1870)

351 353 355 358 361 366 369 375 381 384 386 391 393 397 401 403 406 409 412 415 418 420 422 425 427 431 435 438

Volume 2 Qadir, Haji Abdul (1951–2002) Qutuz, Saif ad-Din (?–1260) Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995) Radama II (1829–1863) Rahman, Ziaur (1936–1981) Rasputin, Grigori Yefimovich (1869–1916)

441 444 447 451 453 456

CONTENTS

Rathenau, Walther (1867–1922) Ratsimandrava, Richard (1931–1975) Razmara, Sepahbod Haj Ali (1901–1951) Reagan, Ronald Wilson (1911–2004)—Attempted Reina Barrios, José María (1854–1898) Remeliik, Haruo Ignacio (1933–1985) Remón Cantera, José Antonio (1908–1955) Ritavuori, Heikki (1880–1922) Rockwell, George Lincoln (1918–1967) Röhm, Ernst Julius Günther (1887–1934) Romero y Galdámez, Óscar Arnulfo (1917–1980) Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919)—Attempted Ryan, Leo Joseph, Jr. (1925–1978) Rzayev Gurbanoglu, Rail (1945–2009) Sá Carneiro, Francisco Manuel Lumbrales de (1934–1980) Sadat, Anwar El (1918–1981) Sadulayev, Abdul-Halim Abu-Salamovich (1966–2006) Salim, Ezzedine (1943–2004) Sánchez Cerro, Luis Miguel (1889–1933) Sandino, Augusto Nicolás Calderón (1895–1934) Sankara, Thomas Isidore Noël (1949–1987) Sargsyan, Vazgen (1959–1999) Schneider Chereau, René (1913–1970) Seleucus I (350s BCE–281 BCE) September, Dulcie Evonne (1935–1988) Shaka kaSenzangakhona (1781/87–1828) Sharples, Richard Christopher (1916–1973) Shermarke, Abdirashid Ali (1919–1969) Shevket Pasha, Mahmud (1856–1913) Smith, Joseph, Jr. (1805–1844) Sogdianus (?–423 BCE) Somoza Debayle, Anastasio (1925–1980) Somoza García, Anastasio (1896–1956) Stamboliyski, Aleksandar (1879–1923) Stambolov, Stefan Nikolov (1854–1895)

460 462 464 465 470 471 473 475 476 481 483 486 491 494 497 499 502 504 505 507 511 513 515 517 520 522 525 526 528 530 534 535 538 541 543

xi

xii

CONTENTS

Steunenberg, Frank (1861–1905) Stewart, James, Earl of Moray (1531–1570) Strang, James Jesse (1813–1856) Sverker I (?–1156) Takahashi Korekiyo (1854–1936) Taraki, Nur Muhammad (1917–1979) Taseer, Salmaan (1944–2011) Tisza de Borosjeno˝ et Szeged, István (1861–1918) Tjibaou, Jean-Marie (1936–1989) Tolbert, William Richard, Jr. (1913–1980) Tombalbaye, François (1918–1975) Trotsky, Leon (1879–1940) Trujillo Molina, Rafael Leonidas (1891–1961) Truman, Harry S. (1884–1972)—Attempted Umar ibn Al-Khatta¯b (586/590–644) Umberto I (1844–1900) Uwilingiyimana, Agathe (1953–1994) Valko, Ernest (1953–2010) Vance, Robert Smith (1931–1989) Verwoerd, Hendrik Frensch (1901–1966) Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom (1819–1901)—Attempted Vieira, João “Nino” Bernardo (1939–2009) Villa, Francisco “Pancho” (1878–1923) Villarroel López, Gualberto (1908–1946) Vom Rath, Ernst Eduard (1909–1938) Wallace, George Corley, Jr. (1919–1998)—Attempted Welch, Richard Skeffington (1929–1975) Wenceslaus I (907–935) William I, Prince of Orange (1533–1584) William II of England (1056–1100) Wood, John Howland, Jr. (1916–1979) Xerxes I of Persia (519 BCE–465 BCE) Yuldashev, Tohir Abduhalilovich (1967–2009) Zapata Salazar, Emiliano (1879–1919)

544 548 550 552 555 558 559 562 564 567 569 572 576 580 585 588 591 595 597 600 604 606 610 614 616 621 625 628 630 634 637 641 645 649

CONTENTS

Zhang Zuolin (1875–1928)

652

Zorig, Sanjaasuren (1962–1998)

655

Primary Documents 1. Assassination of Pompey the Great (48 BCE)— Plutarch’s Description of the Murder of Pompey in Egypt

661

2. Assassination of Julius Caesar (44 BCE)— Letter of Brutus to Cicero on Caesar’s Assassination (43 BCE)

664

3. Assassination of the Roman Emperor Caligula (41 CE)— Suetonius’s Account of the Murder

668

4. Death of William II, King of England (1100)— Description of William’s Death by Chronicler Peter of Blois

671

5. Murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket (1170)— The Eyewitness Account of Edward Grim

672

6. Assassination of Albert I of Habsburg (1308)— Act V, Scene 2 of the Play Wilhelm Tell by Friedrich Schiller (1804)

675

7. Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1865)—Official Messages and Correspondence Relating to the Shooting of President Lincoln (April 15, 1865)

680

8. Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1865)— General Court-Martial Orders No. 356 for Trial of the Lincoln Assassination Conspirators

683

9. Assassination of Czar Alexander II of Russia (1881)— Prince Peter Kropotkin’s Account of the Murder

688

10. Assassination of James A. Garfield (1881)— Address of Vice President Chester A. Arthur upon Assuming the Presidency

691

11. Assassination of Morgan Earp (1882)— Tombstone Epitaph Account of the Murder

693

12. Assassination of William McKinley (1901)— Newspaper Accounts of the Shooting and Death of the President

694

13. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1914)— Austrian Official Report on the Assassination

700

14. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1914)— Excerpts from American Newspaper Accounts of the Murder of the Archduke and His Wife

703

xiii

xiv

CONTENTS

15. Assassination of Emiliano Zapata (1919)— Three Accounts of the Ambush 16. Assassination of Senator Huey P. Long (1935)— Senator Long’s “Share the Wealth” Program (1934) 17. Assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem (1963)— State Department Cables Concerning the Coup That Overthrew President Diem of South Vietnam 18. Assassination of John F. Kennedy (1963)—Excerpts from the Warren Commission Report (1964) 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) 20. Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (1968)—Edward M. Kennedy’s Eulogy for His Brother Robert F. Kennedy 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) 22. Attempted Assassination of Ronald Reagan (1981)— Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (1993) 23. Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin (1995)— Last Speech of Israeli Prime Minister Rabin

709 715

720 727

780 797

800 808 812

Appendix: World Timeline of Assassinations

815

Selected Bibliography

835

Index

837

Preface

Famous Assassinations in World History: An Encyclopedia aims to fill a gap in scholarship concerning political murder, as practiced worldwide, throughout recorded history. It is intended to serve both a general audience and the more specific needs of professional, scholarly researchers active in the study of criminology, terrorism, and related fields. At the time of writing, no comparable source was available in print. The work in hand defines assassination as the murder of a prominent public figure: heads of state and other government officials, religious leaders, spokespersons for political parties and social movements, journalists active in molding public opinion, and so on. Professional criminals slain during internecine gang wars are excluded, regardless of their national or global notoriety, on grounds that their murders accomplish nothing but installment of a new “boss” or “godfather” for a particular syndicate. Likewise, celebrities killed by obsessive stalkers are ignored, with one exception, since their deaths have no impact on society at large beyond the transient grief of fans. The lone exception, musician John Lennon, is included here because of his sociopolitical activities in later life, and the persistent claims of government conspiracy behind his death. The encyclopedia’s two volumes include 266 main entries, arranged alphabetically, selected on the basis of their prominence in history and impact on events of their respective eras. Four entries chart the histories of specific organizations involved in multiple assassinations spanning centuries, and the remainder describe specific assassinations (or attempted assassinations) occurring between 465 BCE and 2012. Entries describing a particular assassination include details of the event, a brief biography of the victim(s), and the aftermath of each slaying, including its political and societal impact, plus pertinent depictions in popular culture. Entries are cross-referenced as necessary. To facilitate additional research, each entry includes suggested sources for further reading, and a selected bibliography of general works on assassination is also included. As supplements to the main entries, 54 shorter sidebar articles enhance the text with information on groups, movements, persons, or events related to a particular assassination or to assassinations in general. These sidebars help to place specific murders in context, further illuminate the motives and the

xvi

P R E FA C E

backgrounds of participants, and describe events that sprang from violence directed against public figures. The section of entries is followed by a selection of 23 primary documents. Arranged chronologically, these documents comprise accounts of assassinations and reports of investigations, as well as speeches and statutes that preceded or resulted from the murders. The documents included range from Plutarch’s description of the murder of Pompey the Great in Egypt in 48 BCE, through the last speech of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, delivered moments before his murder in 1995. Finally, to ensure complete coverage of the subject, an appendix provides a timeline of other prominent assassinations omitted from the main text entries due to space constraints. That list includes 486 cases, spanning the globe and the years from 748 BCE to 2012. In that timeline, continents and their countries are arranged alphabetically, with assassinations and attempts for each specific country listed chronologically. A detailed subject index will help users find important figures, events, and ideas in the main entries. Every effort has been made to present timely, complete, and accurate information throughout Famous Assassinations in World History. That said, available sources—particularly those concerned with ancient crimes and modern, controversial cases—frequently provide conflicting dates, names, and descriptions of events. In each case, I have chosen what appears to be the best and most substantive information currently available. Readers wishing to suggest corrections for perceived inaccuracies, or to offer further data on the cases here described, may contact the author through ABC-CLIO, or directly through his Web site at www.michaelnewton.homestead.com.

Introduction

Assassination may be viewed as the ultimate expression of protest—against a government regime or its opponents, a religious or sociopolitical movement, even against an idea deemed hateful by the assassin. Whether the act is committed by a disaffected individual, a gang of conspirators, or an official government agency, whether its result is mourned or cheered by millions, an assassination—simple murder elevated to a noteworthy event by the selection of its victims—has the potential to change history. We often hear it said that violence accomplishes nothing. Sociologists may quarrel with historians over that hoary adage, parsing the impact of mayhem ranging from petty street crimes to acts of terrorism and genocide, but with regard to assassination, the record is indisputable: selective murders have changed history, for good or ill, and sometimes on an epic scale. A few examples should suffice. Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1865 doomed any hope of peaceful reconciliation between the victorious North and defeated South after America’s Civil War, plunging the former Confederacy into the decade of turmoil and terrorism known—at least in the minds of white supremacists affected by the loss of their former slaves—as “Radical Reconstruction.” Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s slaying in 1914 triggered the global tragedy of World War I—perhaps inevitable, in the climate of the times, but waiting for a trigger incident to light the fuse. That four-year struggle claimed at least 9,407,136 lives on three continents, and while publicly billed as the “War to End All War,” World War I in fact set the stage for an even more devastating conflict, beginning only 20 years later. The mass execution of Russia’s royal family in 1918 climaxed one of the world’s great revolutions, setting the stage for seven decades of “hot” and “cold” war between Moscow and the reputed “free world.” The final death toll for that worldwide war of shadows, “police actions,” and counterrevolutions may only be vaguely estimated, but it certainly ran into millions. The murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968 prompted many African American leaders to abandon nonviolent protest against racial inequity, igniting ghetto fires from coast to coast and hastening the rise of militant groups fixed on a dead-end collision course with hostile authorities. The slaying of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, one month after King, clearly contributed to

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 national shame of Watergate. Speculation and debate persist, surrounding other assassinations and bungled attempts. Few deny that killing Adolf Hitler in 1944 might have saved lives in the hundreds of thousands, at least. Recorded statements from President 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, admittedly, 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 determined 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 economy determine the final scope of every published reference work. Second, some entries were selected (or omitted) based on the author’s personal 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 grievous 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 President 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 students 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

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 violence persist on Earth. If anything, our world appears to be a more chaotic, violent 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. Narcoterrorism 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 produced 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.

xix

This page intentionally left blank

A ABDALLAH ABDEREMANE, AHMED (1919–1989) On November 26, 1989, armed rebellion erupted in Moroni, capital of the Comoros, an island chain located in the Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and the African mainland. The coup’s leader, Said Mohamed Djohar, was the half-brother of former president Ali Soilih Mtsashiwa, chafing under the rule of his sibling’s successor, President Ahmed Abdallah Abderemane. Rebels captured President Abdallah during the first day of fighting, and executed him on orders from Djohar. Born on the island of Anjouan on June 12, 1919, when Comoros was still a French colony, Abdallah entered politics in the 1940s, served as president of the general council from 1949 to 1953, and assumed chairmanship of the Chamber of Deputies in 1970. Two years later, leading his own political party—the Comoros Democratic Union (UDC)—Abdallah was elected chief minister of Comoros and held that post until the islands achieved independence on July 6, 1975. Voters chose him as their new nation’s first president, but he lasted less than a month, deposed by Said Mohamed Jaffar on August 3. Jaffar, in turn, was overthrown by revolutionary socialist Ali Soilih Mtsashiwa in January 1976. Soilih sought to make Comoros a self-sufficient nation, melding Maoist principles with certain progressive Islamic philosophies, a goal that brought him into conflict with traditional Muslim society. He abandoned classic “grand marriage” (Anda) and funerary rituals, banned veiling of women, discouraged young Comorians from studying history, and encouraged them to take a greater role in government. To that end, Soilih young “Moissy” militia units patterned on China’s Red Guards, legalized cannabis, and proposed lowering the voting age to 14. Moissy units raided rural pockets of resistance and killed its conservative elders. Soilih’s “reforms” spurred hostile reactions in France, whose government cut off financial and technical aid to Comoros. In Paris, Ahmed Abdallah hired French mercenary Bob Denard to organize a team of 50 soldiers to depose Soilih. Their coup succeeded on May 13, 1978, installing former interior minister Said Atthoumani as “Chairman of the Politico-Military Directorate.” Ten days later, Abdallah and ally Mohamed Ahmed succeeded Atthoumani

2

AGUIYI-IRONSI, JOHNSON THOM AS UMUNNAK WE

as cochairmen. Abdallah’s men executed Soilih on May 29, and Abdallah removed Ahmed to become sole chairman on October 3. Three weeks later he assumed office as president of a newly proclaimed Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros. Abdallah ruled Comoros for the remainder of his life, disbanding the UDC in 1982 and replacing it with the Comorian Union for Progress as the nation’s only legal party. Discord between Abdallah and Bob Denart inspired Supreme Court judge Said Djohar to lead an uprising against Abdallah. On the day after Abdallah’s murder, Djohar assumed leadership of a new provisional government and became chief director of the African International Bank. Ironically, Denart’s mercenaries returned to depose Djohar in September 1995. French authorities held him in Réunion until January 1996, then permitted his return to Comoros, where he briefly resumed his presidency. Rival Mohamed Taki Abdoulkarim defeated Djohar in March 1996, whereupon Djohar retired from public life. Further Reading Bratton, Michael, and Nicholas van de Walle. Democratic Experiments in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Ottenheimer, Martin, and Harriet Ottenheimer. Historical Dictionary of the Comoro Islands. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1994. Schraeder, Peter. African Politics and Society: A Mosaic in Transformation. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2004. Seddon, Peter. A Political and Economic Dictionary of Africa. London: Routledge, 2005.

A G U IY I-IRONSI, J OH NSON THOMAS UMUNNAKWE (1924–1966) Nigeria’s first military head of state established his junta by violence in January 1966 and left office the same way, 194 days later. While touring the nation he ruled, Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi stopped at Ibadan, capital of Nigeria’s Western Region1, to spend the night of July 28 with military governor Adekunle Fajuyi at Government House. Fajuyi alerted Aguiyi-Ironsi to rumors of mutiny within the army, but Aguiyi-Ironsi was unable to reach army chief of staff Yakubu Gowon. In the predawn hours of July 29, soldiers led by Captain Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma invaded Government House, subsequently executing Aguiyi-Ironsi and Fajuyi in the nearby forest, whereupon Yakubu Gowon assumed command of the country. Born at Umuahia, Nigeria, on March 3, 1924, Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi joined the army at age 18 and trained with England’s Royal Army Ordnance Corps before securing promotion to lieutenant in June 1949. He served as aide-de-camp to Governor-General John Macpherson and led Nigerian troops on a four-year peacekeeping mission during the 1960s Congo Crisis. In February 1965, he

AL-BANNA, SHEIKH HASAN AHMED ABDEL RAHMAN MUHAMMED

replaced British major general Welby-Everard as commander of the Nigerian army. On January 14, 1966, Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu staged a military coup against Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa’s civilian government, but Aguiyi-Ironsi eluded would-be assassins and arrested Major Nzeogwu in Lagos, emerging as Nigeria’s leader when acting president Nwafor Orizu ceded power to the army. While Aguiyi-Ironsi emerged from the turmoil in charge, his reluctance to court-martial and execute coup leaders from his own Igbo tribe sparked opposition against him. Aguiyi-Ironsi sought to defuse the situation by granting patronage appointments to members of other ethnic groups, and then made matters worse with a series of decrees consolidating power in his hands. Decree no. 1 suspended most provisions of Nigeria’s constitution, while leaving certain basic liberties intact. Decree no. 2 restricted freedom of the press, while decree no. 34 abolished Nigeria’s federal system in favor of military rule, closing many of the country’s embassies abroad. Decree no. 44 made it a crime to “display or pass on pictorial representation, sing songs, or play instruments the words of which are likely to provoke any section of the country.” With Igbo leaders in charge, other ethnic groups viewed Aguiyi-Ironsi’s regime as repressive. Captain Danjuma, a member of the rival Jukun ethno-linguistic group, led the countercoup of July 1966, installing Yakubu Gowon as head of state, thereby earning promotion to lieutenant colonel in 1967, to colonel in 1971, to brigadier in 1975, and to army chief of staff in 1976. He retired to run a commercial shipping line in 1979, and founded South Atlantic Petroleum Limited in 1995. Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi’s son was appointed to serve as Nigeria’s defense minister on August 30, 2006, forty years after his father’s assassination. Further Reading Barrett, Lindsay. Danjuma, the Making of a General. Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth Dimension, 1979. Ezrow, Natasha, and Erica Frantz. Dictators and Dictatorships: Understanding Authoritarian Regimes and Their Leaders. London: Continuum International Publishing, 2011. Kapuscinski, Ryszard. The Shadow of the Sun. New York: Vintage Books, 2001. “Nigeria’s Former Presidents.” Africa 24 Media. http://photography.a24media.com/ index.php/photogallery/prominent-faces/121-nigerias-former-presidents. Osaghe, Eghosa. The Crippled Giant: Nigeria Since Independence. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.

A L - B A N N A , S H E IKH H ASAN AHMED ABDEL RAHMAN MUHAMMED (1906–1949) On the afternoon of February 12, 1949, Sheikh Hasan al-Banna and his brotherin-law, Abdul Karim Mansur, visited the headquarters of the Young Men’s

3

4

AL-BANNA, SHEIKH HASAN AHMED ABDEL RAHMAN MUHAMMED

Muslim Association in Cairo, Egypt. They were scheduled to meet Zaki Ali Basha, a spokesman for King Farouk I, and negotiate a resolution of grievances between the monarchy and al-Banna’s rival Muslim Brotherhood. When Basha failed to appear by 5:00 P.M., al-Banna and Mansur prepared to leave. They stood outside, waiting for a taxi, when two gunmen approached and opened fire at close range, fatally wounding both men. Hasan al-Banna was born in Mahmoudiyah, northwest of Cairo in the Nile Delta, on October 14, 1906. The son of a local imam (mosque leader) and teacher of Hanbali (religious law of Sunni Islam), al-Banna was raised in accordance with strict conservative traditions. At age 13 he joined in demonstrations against British colonial rule, and at 16 was initiated into Sufism, a mystical dimension of Islam defined by its leading scholars as “a science whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God.” In adulthood al-Banna struggled to earn a living, operating a watch-repair shop and selling gramophones, while collaborating with fellow Sufis on theological writings in his spare time. Married and relocated to Cairo in 1924, he found himself unable to compete financially with manufacturers of cheap timepieces, and he was increasingly distressed by the lax religious piety in Egypt’s capital. Al-Banna’s response, in March 1928, was the creation of the Society of Muslim Brothers—more commonly known as the Muslim Brotherhood—launched as a quasi-fascist pan-Islamic political party, defining the Quran as the “sole reference point for . . . ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community . . . and state.” The Suez Canal Company funded construction of the Brotherhood’s first mosque, at Ismailia, but al-Banna moved the headquarters to Cairo four years later. From a membership of 800 in 1936, the Brotherhood expanded to claim 200,000 by 1938, with branches established in Syria and Transjordan. Despite recurring challenges to his leadership, al-Banna prevailed as the movement’s general guide, steering the Brotherhood toward opposition against British rule. A public admirer of Adolf Hitler, he nonetheless argued for constitutional government “to preserve in all its forms the freedom of the individual citizen, to make the rulers accountable for their actions to the people and finally, to delimit the prerogatives of every single authoritative body.” A paramilitary wing carried out selective acts of terrorism, while al-Banna remained ambivalent toward violence. World War II brought martial law to Egypt in 1941, and al-Banna was twice imprisoned as a subversive. Brotherhood journals were suppressed, its meetings banned, and any reference to it in newspapers prohibited. Still the movement grew to include 2,000 branches by 1948, with an estimated two million members. Renewed antigovernment violence in that year prompted a ban on the Brotherhood in November 1948, with 32 leaders of its “secret apparatus” arrested. Al-Banna’s February 1949 meeting with Zaki Ali Basha was meant to resolve that tension, but led to his own death instead.

AL-BANNA, SHEIKH HASAN AHMED ABDEL RAHMAN MUHAMMED

THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD Following Sheikh al-Banna’s assassination, the Muslim Brotherhood continued its expansion, marked by acts of violence. Members rioted in Cairo on January 26, 1952, burning some 750 buildings, mostly nightclubs, theatres, hotels, and restaurants patronized by foreigners. Six months later, the Brotherhood inspired and supported the overthrow of Egypt’s monarchy in a military coup led by members of the Free Officers Movement. Still dissatisfied with the secular state that replaced royal rule, Brotherhood members plotted unsuccessfully to kill President Gamal Abdel Nasser in October 1954. Banned as a political party thereafter, suffering cyclical crackdowns from successive governments, the Brotherhood still grew into the Middle East’s most influential Muslim movement, recognized as the largest political opposition organization in several Arab states. Banned from operating as a party in Egypt, the Brotherhood fielded numerous “independent” candidates in the 2005 parliamentary campaign, winning 88 seats—20 percent of the total—despite hundreds of arrests and widespread electoral fraud. Six years later, after the popular revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood was legalized once more and launched a new political vehicle, the Freedom and Justice Party. Egypt’s new president—Mohamed Morsi Isa El-Ayyat, elected in June 2012—is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a fact that resonated in that year’s U.S. presidential elections, when Morsi proved less than zealous in defending Cairo’s U.S. embassy against Muslim rioters on the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Two days after that incident, President Barack Obama told an interviewer, “I don’t think that we would consider [Egypt] an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy.” A military coup against President Morsi in July 2013 ostensibly broke the Brotherhood’s hold over Egypt, with various senior members of the organization placed under arrest. That, in turn, sparked a rash of violence by Muslims against Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority.

Further Reading Abdelkader, Deina. Islamic Activists: The Anti-Enlightenment Democrats. London: Pluto Press, 2011. Ikhwanweb: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Official English Web site. http://www.ikhwanweb .com. Lia, Brynjar. The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement. Reading, United Kingdom: Garnet, 1998.

5

6

ALBERT I OF HABSBURG

Mitchell, Richard. The Society of the Muslim Brothers. London: Oxford University Press, 1969. Pargeter, Alison. The Muslim Brotherhood: The Burden of Tradition. London: Saqi Books, 2010. Pryce-Jones, David. The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2009. Rubin, Barry. The Muslim Brotherhood: The Organization and Policies of a Global Islamist Movement. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

ALBERT I OF HABSBURG (1255–1308) In the 10th year of his reign as king of the Romans and Duke of Austria, Albert I of Habsburg faced an uprising in Swabia, one of five stem duchies (tribal domains) of the medieval German kingdom, thrown into chaos with the death of Hohenstaufen duke Conradin in October 1268. Albert’s father, Rudolf von Habsburg, had attempted to revive the duchy under his control, but had not prevailed before his death in July 1291. Determined to succeed where his father had failed, Albert planned a new show of force in spring 1308, but on May 1 was separated from his attendants at Windisch, while crossing the Reuss River. Caught unguarded, he was ambushed by a rebel party under an 18-year-old rival, Duke John of Swabia. The eldest son of Rudolf I, born in July 1255, Albert was groomed for the German throne but saw that ambition dashed by objections from Wenceslaus II, king of Bohemia and Poland. Rudolf’s backup plan, to install Albert as successor to the murdered King Ladislaus IV of Hungary in July 1290, also failed when Andrew III of Hungary claimed that throne. At Rudolf’s death, the Holy Roman Empire’s prince-electors bypassed Albert, seeking to prevent establishment of a hereditary monarchy, and chose instead Count Adolf of NassauWeilburg as next king of the Albert I of Habsburg, assassinated by rebels in Romans. Ostensibly retiring to May 1308. (De Agostini/Getty Images) the Habsburg realm at Vienna,

AL-DIN SHAH QAJAR, NASSER

Albert continued scheming to obtain the throne, and by 1298 had secured backing from several princes troubled over Adolf’s alliance with Wenceslaus II. The rival kings clashed at the Battle of Göllheim, on July 2, 1298, where Adolf was slain. Albert was then elected to the thrown on July 27, and formally crowned on August 24, though Pope Boniface VIII weakened his authority by refusing to recognize Albert’s election. Subsequent meddling in a quarrel over succession to the Hungarian throne climaxed with Albert’s defeat by Frederick I, margrave of Meissen, at the Battle of Lucka on May 31, 1307. Albert’s final downfall resulted from a slight to John of Swabia in 1306. As nephew of Albert, being the son of his younger brother, John suffered humiliation when Albert denied him his inheritance and placed his own son, Rudolf III, on the Bohemian throne. Mocked thereafter as “Duke Lackland,” John plotted Albert’s murder with local allies and personally swung the axe that killed Albert on May 1, 1308. While Albert’s sons sought vengeance, Duke John—now dubbed John Parricida ( John the Parricide)—escaped and vanished from history. Reports of his settlement at an Italian monastery, visited briefly by King Henry VII of Luxembourg in 1313, remain unconfirmed. John appears briefly in Friedrich Schiller’s play William Tell (1804), seeking Tell’s aid against a mutual enemy, Bailiff Albrecht Gessler. Tell refuses and suggests that John seek papal absolution from Rome instead. Further Reading Berenger, Jean. A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1273–1700. Harlow, Essex: Longman Group United Kingdom, 1994. Holmes, George, ed. The Oxford History of Medieval Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Wheatcroft, Andrew. The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans, and the Battle for Europe. New York: Basic Books, 2008. Wheatcroft, Andrew. The Habsburgs: Embodying Empire. New York: Penguin, 1997.

AL-DIN SHAH QAJAR, NASSER (1831–1896) On April 30, 1896, King Nasser al-Din—Iran’s third-longest serving monarch, in the 48th year of his reign—visited the Sha¯h Abdol Azı¯m Shrine in Ray. As he prayed, a gunman approached and shot al-Din at point-blank range with a rusty antique revolver. The wound proved fatal, though physicians claimed a thicker coat might have saved al-Din’s life from the underpowered bullet. Before succumbing on May 1, King al-Din reportedly said, “I will rule you all differently if I survive!” The son of Persian king Mohammad Shah Qajar, born on July 16, 1831, Nasser al-Din assumed his father’s “Peacock Throne” at age 17, with aid from his premier-to-be, Amir Kabir. Hailed by some historians as “Iran’s first reformer,” Kabir influenced the young shah, but could not sway him from ruling

7

8

A L- D I N S H A H Q A JA R , N A S S E R

dictatorially. Encouraged by his queen mother Malek Jahan Khanom, al-Din demoted Kabir to a military rank, then ordered his death in January 1852 based on allegations that Kabir was a secret ally of Russia. Relieved of Kabir’s restraining influence, al-Din persecuted followers of Bábism and the offshoot Bahá’í faith as heretics, killing an estimated 2,000 victims in various purges. In 1856, he also sparked a war with Britain, sending Persian troops to seize Hera¯t, Afghanistan. The resultant AngloPersian War climaxed with Persia’s defeat in April 1857, whereupon al-Din was forced to recognize the kingdom of Nasser al-Din Shaa Qajar, shot while praying at a Afghanistan. Al-Din’s relationshrine in April 1896. (Getty Images) ship with Britain stabilized in time for him to visit London in 1873, where Queen Victoria appointed him a knight of the Order of the Garter. He returned in 1878, for the Royal Navy fleet review, and in 1890 granted British merchant Gerald Talbot a virtual monopoly over Persia’s tobacco industry (canceled after Ayatollah Mirza Mohammed Hassan Husseini Shirazi issued a fatwa¯ banning cultivation, trading, or consumption of tobacco). Ultimately, Nasser al-Din’s attempts to westernize Iran cost him his life. Islamic activist Sayyid Muh.ammad ibn S.afdar Husaynı¯ , known as “The Afghan,” despite his apparent birth in Iran, was expelled in 1891 on orders from al-Din, for agitating against the shah’s reforms. Although frequently embroiled in bitter arguments even with Muslims who supported him, historians agree that Husaynı¯ “reserved his strongest hatred for the Shah.” Al-Din, in turn, blamed Husaynı¯ for the fatwa¯ against tobacco, which cost him a small fortune and, on a personal note, prompted his wives to insist that he stop smoking. The gunman who killed al-Din, Mirza Reza Kermani, was an ardent follower of Husaynı¯ . Captured at the scene of the attack, Kermani endured months of interrogation telling jailers, “I had a chance to kill him before, but I didn’t because the Jews were celebrating their picnic after the eighth day of Passover. I did not want the Jews to be accused of killing the Shah.” Kermani’s wife

ALEXANDER I OF SERBIA

divorced him prior to his execution on August 10, 1896, while his son was reduced to being a slave. Further Reading Amanat, Abbas. Pivot of the Universe: Nasir al-Din Shah and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831–1896. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Axworthy, Michael. A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind. New York: Basic Books, 2010. Katouzian, Homa. The Persians: Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Iran. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.

ALEXANDER I OF SERBIA (1876–1903) On the night of June 10–11, 1903, a group of Serbian army officers led by Captain Dragutin Dimitrijevi´c stormed the royal palace in Belgrade, battling guards, before they captured and summarily executed King Albert I and his wife, Queen Draga Mašin. That “May Overthrow”—so called because it occurred on May 28–29 under the obsolete Julian calendar, still used in Serbia at the time—extinguished the House of Obrenovic´ that had ruled from 1815 to 1842, and again since 1858, passing Serbia’s throne to the House of Karador ¯ devi ¯ c´ under King Peter I. Born in Belgrade on August 14, 1876, Alexander I became Serbia’s king at age 13, with the surprise abdication of his father, King Milan I. Before retiring to private life in France, Milan named his queen consort and Alexander’s mother, Natalija Obrenovic, ´ to serve as regent until Alexander’s 18th birthday. Tired of waiting by April 1893, Alexander staged a coup d’état and proclaimed himself a qualified adult at age 16. Although many Serbs admired that action, and his appointment of “radical” ministers, popular support waned in May 1894, when Alexander repealed his father’s liberal constitution of 1888, restoring a more conservative one from 1869. At the same time, Alexander named Milan as commander in chief of the army in 1897. Relations between father and son soured in August 1900, when Alexander married Draga Mašin. Both royal parents—and, apparently, most Serbians at large—regarded Draga as a fortune-hunting seductress, whose father had died in a lunatic asylum while her mother descended into alcoholism. After the wedding, Milan resigned his military post and Alexander exiled his mother to mute her ongoing objections. Public opinion of Alexander, already damaged, plummeted further with the announcement that one of Queen Draga’s brothers, Lieutenant Nikodije Mašin, would be heir to Alexander’s throne. When senators opposed to Nikodije’s succession aired their criticism in March 1903, Alexander suspended the constitution for 30 minutes—just long enough to dismiss his detractors and replace them with compliant newcomers. In that tense atmosphere, Captain Dimitrijevic´ and other junior army officers conspired to kill the king and queen. On the night of the coup, Lieutenant

9

10

A L E X A N D E R I O F Y U G O S L AV I A

Nikodije and his brother, Nikola Mašin, died defending the palace, their corpses tossed from a balcony onto a garden manure heap with Alexander’s and Draga’s. Captain Dimitrijevi´c, badly wounded, survived and was proclaimed “the savior of the fatherland” by Serbia’s parliament, and appointed professor of tactics at the nation’s military academy. Subsequently, as a leader of the secret society Unification of Death, also called the “Black Hand,” Dimitrijevic´ plotted unsuccessfully to kill Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in 1911, and played a leading role in the 1914 assassination of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand. The House of Karador ¯ devi ¯ c, ´ established through Dimitrijevi´c’s conspiracy, ruled Serbia—and subsequently, Yugoslavia—until King Peter II was deposed and driven into exile in November 1945. Peter died in the United States in 1970, following a failed liver transplant to cure his longstanding cirrhosis. Further Reading Gildea, Robert. Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800–1914. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Glenny, Misha. The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, 1804–1999. New York: Penguin, 2001. Roberts, J. M. The European Empires. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Sulzberger, C. L. The Fall of Eagles. New York: Crown, 1977.

ALEXANDER I OF YUGOSLAVIA (1888–1934) On October 9, 1934, King Alexander I arrived in Marseilles, beginning a state visit to the Third French Republic which he hoped would strengthen French ties to the “Little Entente”—an alliance of Yugoslavia, Romania, and Czechoslovakia, formed 13 years earlier to block restoration of the Habsburg Empire. As Alexander drove through Marseilles with French foreign minister Louis Barthou, Bulgarian revolutionary Vlado Chernozemski opened fire with a pistol concealed in a bouquet of flowers, killing Alexander and his chauffeur. A police officer fired at Chernozemski and missed, fatally wounding Barthou. Vlado Chernozemski tried to shoot himself, but was cut down by a mounted policeman’s sword, then beaten to death by furious spectators. Born in Montenegro on December 16, 1888, Alexander was the son of King Peter I of Serbia, who replaced assassinated King Alexander I of Serbia in 1903. Almost killed by typhus in 1910, Alexander was not first in line for the throne, but his elder brother, Crown Prince George, was forced to renounce his succession rights after kicking a servant to death in 1909. Emerging as a military hero of the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 and the Serbian Campaign of World War I, Alexander assumed the throne upon his father’s death, in August 1921. Eleven months later, he married Princess Maria of Romania, daughter of that nation’s King Ferdinand.

A L E X A N D E R I O F Y U G O S L AV I A

Alexander’s reign was marked by alienation between Serbs and Croatians, exacerbated in June 1928 when Montenegrin Serb politician Puniša Racˇi´c shot several members of the Croatian Peasant Party (CPP) in parliament, fatally wounding CPP leader Stjepan Radi´c. Radi´c died in August, and escalating turmoil prompted Alexander to abolish Yugoslavia’s constitution on January 6, 1929, establishing one-man rule known as the “January 6th Dictatorship.” Ten months later, he formally changed the country’s name to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, reducing its political subdivisions from 33 oblasts (zones) to 9 banovinas (provinces). At the same time, he banned use of Serbian Cyrillic, replacing it with the Latin alphabet. A new constitution, imposed by fiat in 1931, Alexander I of Yugoslavia, shot by revolutionary Vlado Chernozemski in 1934. (Getty Images) transferred all executive power to Alexander, while granting him power to appoint half the members of parliament’s upper house. Henceforth, legislation could be enacted by one house alone, if the king approved. Opposition to Alexander was particularly strong in Vardar Macedonia (today’s Republic of Macedonia), where the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) agitated for secession from Yugoslavia. Alexander’s assassin, Vlado Chernozemski, was an IMRO member linked to rebel skirmishes with Yugoslavian police. Sentenced to die for killing a fellow IMRO member in 1930, he was pardoned in 1932 and went to Italy, where he trained Croatian Ustaše guerrillas at a camp near Borgetoro. Although ostensibly Croatian nationalists, the Ustaše were also fascists sponsored by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. During World War II the group ruled part of occupied Yugoslavia as the Independent State of Croatia, in fact an Axis puppet state, collaborating in the Holocaust. Peter II Karador ¯ devi ¯ c´ followed his father to the throne at age 11, with Alexander’s cousin Prince Paul named as regent. In defiance of Peter and his

11

12

ALEX ANDER II OF RUSSIA

antifascist advisors, Paul announced Yugoslavia’s alliance with Germany and Italy on March 25, 1941, forming a new tripartite pact. Peter led a coup two days later, prompting a fascist retaliatory campaign dubbed “Operation Punishment.” Peter fled and Yugoslavia surrendered on April 17, with its territory divided between among the victors. Further Reading Chaliand, Gérard, and Arnaud Blin. “The ‘Golden Age’ of Terrorism.” In The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to Al Qaeda. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Graham, Stephen. Alexander of Yugoslavia. North Haven, CT: Shoe String Press, 1972. Roberts, Allen. The Turning Point: The Assassination of Louis Barthou and King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1970. Singleton, Fred. A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

ALEXANDER II OF RUSSIA (1818–1881) Each Sunday without fail, Russian tsar Alexander II attended military roll call at the Mikhailovsky riding academy in St. Petersburg, accompanied by a large entourage. The traditional procession always traveled by the same route from the palace, crossing the Catherine (now Griboyedov) Canal via Pevchesky Bridge. On March 13, 1881, the street-side audience to Alexander’s ritual included several members of the revolutionary group Narodnaya Volya (“People’s Will”), armed with bombs. Terrorists Nikolai Rysakov and Timofey Mikhaylov lobbed their charges first, but both missed the tsar’s carriage, killing one Cossack guard and wounding several more. When Alexander emerged to aid the injured men, bomber Ignacy Hryniewiecki set off another blast, fatally wounding the tsar and himself. A fourth would-be assassin, Ivan Emelyanov, fled without detonating his device. The eldest son of Tsar Tsar Alexander II of Russia, slain in a terrorist bombing on March 13, 1881. (Getty Images) Nicholas I, Alexander II was

ALEXANDER II OF RUSSIA

born in Moscow on April 29, 1818. He was a liberal by Russian standards in the 19th century, known during his reign as Alexander the Liberator. Succeeding to the throne in March 1855, after pneumonia claimed his father’s life, Alexander inherited a kingdom rife with corruption, defeated and exhausted by the Crimean War. He embarked on a course of reform, emancipating Russia’s serfs, including sons of wealthy families in military conscription, remodeling the judiciary, and establishing a new penal code, instituting local self-government by elective assemblies for rural districts, increasing Finland’s autonomy from Russia, and fattening the treasury with $7 million ($200 million today) from the sale of Alaska to the United States. Still, Alexander was not universally admired. His reforms did not extend to territories of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, where martial law suppressed the “January Uprising” of 1863–1864, with some 10,000 rebels slain and an equal number exiled to Siberia. Before his murder in 1881, Alexander survived four assassination attempts. Dmitry Karakozov, a member of the revolutionary Ishutin Society, tried to shoot Alexander at St. Petersburg’s Summer Garden on April 4, 1866, but was captured and subsequently hanged, with 10 alleged accomplices imprisoned. On April 20, 1879, revolutionist Alexander Soloviev fired five shots at the tsar in Palace Square but missed each time, and was sent to the gallows on May 28. Seven months later, Narodnaya Volya dynamited the railroad line between Moscow and Livadia, but missed Alexander’s train. A bomb set in the Winter Palace dining room exploded on February 5, 1880, killing 11 persons and wounding 30, but Alexander was late for dinner and escaped the blast. In that case, bomber Stepan Khalturin— another Narodnaya Volya member—escaped to participate in other revolutionary acts, but was captured and hanged for the murder of a high-ranking Odessa police officer in March 1882. Agents of Russia’s secret police, the Okhrana, learned of the latest plot against Alexander in February 1881. They arrested ringleader Andrei Zhelyabov, but under torture he vowed that nothing could save the tsar’s life. After the fatal March bombing, authorities jailed five more conspirators. Bomber Nikolai Rysakov and Timofey Mikhaylov were hanged on April 3, 1881, with Zhelyabov, Sophia Perovskaya, and Nikolai Kibalchich. Gesia Gelfman died in prison, while fugitive Nikolai Sablin killed himself to avoid capture. Tsar Alexander III, a witness to his father’s slaying, soon revoked the various reforms instituted since 1855. He was convinced that Russia could only be saved by strict adherence to “Official Nationality,” “embodied” in strict autocracy and adherence to tenets of the Russian Orthodox Church, including overt anti-Semitism. Successive pogroms and the “May Laws” of 1882 and restricting areas of Jewish habitation and fields of occupation, set the stage for future Russian revolutionary movements.

13

14

ALI, MUHAMMAD MANSUR

A curious footnote to Alexander’s reign is his appearance in the opening chapters of Jules Verne’s adventure novel Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar. Regarded by many critics as one of Verne’s best books, Michael Strogoff is a tale of espionage, rather than the more familiar science fiction. Published while Alexander II was still alive, the story finds him embroiled with a Tatar rebellion threatening to separate the Russian Far East from tsarist control. Alexander sends the eponymous hero to aid his (Alexander’s) brother, besieged at Irkutsk. Portraying Alexander in a very positive way, Michael Strogoff was adapted as a play by Verne himself, and decades later into several films and cartoon series. Further Reading Graham, Stephen. A Life of Alexander II: Tsar of Russia. London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1935. Moss, Walter. Alexander II and His Times: A Narrative History of Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky. London: Anthem Press, 2002. Radzinsky, Edvard. Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar. New York: The Free Press, 2005. Van Der Kiste, John. The Romanovs 1818–1959: Alexander II of Russia and His Family. St. Albans, United Kingdom: Sutton Publishing, 1998.

ALI, MUHAMMAD MANSUR (1919–1975) Four years after winning independence through a fierce guerrilla war with Pakistan, the People’s Republic of Bangladesh was engulfed in fresh turmoil. On August 15, 1975, conspirators led by Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad assassinated Bangladesh’s founder and president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, with 19 members of his family in Dhaka. Assuming the president’s office, Ahmad invited Prime Minister Muhammad Ali to join his new government, with prominent Rahman loyalists Tajuddin Ahmad, Syed Nazrul Islam, and Abul Hasnat Muhammad Qamaruzzaman. All four refused to comply, whereupon Ahmad abolished the prime minister’s office and ordered the quartet imprisoned at Dhaka Central Jail on August 23. When they still refused to endorse Ahmad’s regime, Ali and the rest were shot by soldiers at the jail, on November 3, 1975. Born in the former Indian province of Bengal, sometime in 1919, Muhammad Ali graduated from Calcutta’s Islamia College, then pursued degrees in economics and law at Aligarh Muslim University, where he joined the Muslim League, rising to serve as its vice president in Pabna district from 1946 to 1950. The league’s primary goal—creation of Pakistan as Muslim state independent from India—was achieved in June 1947. Ali served in Pakistan’s army, attaining the rank of captain, then retired to practice law in 1951. At the same time, he left the Muslim League to join an offshoot, East Pakistan’s Awami League, which sought Bengali independence from Pakistan. Jailed for leading antigovernment protests in 1952, Ali won election to the East Pakistan

AMIN, HAFIZULLAH

Legislative Assembly in 1954, serving at various times as the province’s minister of law, food, agriculture, industry, parliamentary affairs, and commerce. In October 1958, after Field Marshal Ayub Khan staged a military coup and seized office as Pakistan’s president, declaring martial law nationwide, Ali was jailed once more. Released in 1959, Ali joined Mujibur Rahman “Six Point Movement,” agitating for Bengali independence as the state of Bangladesh. With the outbreak of war in March 1971, Ali went underground to lead the Mujibnagar government in exile, serving as its minister of finance. Victory brought independence for Bangladesh in December 1971, and Rahman emerged from prison to serve as the new nation’s first prime minister in January 1972, retaining Ali as minister of finance. In January 1975, with Rahman’s election to the presidency, Ali filled the prime minister’s post—an office left vacant following his murder, until June 1979. On November 6, 1975, three days after Ali and his fellow inmates were murdered at Dhaka Central Jail, President Ahmad was himself deposed in a coup led by two pro-Mujib military officers, Brigadier Khaled Mosharraf and Colonel Shafaat Jamil. The uprising unseated Rahman but failed to establish the insurgents as rulers, with Mosharraf himself assassinated and Jamil arrested. Ahmad survived the coup, succeeded by President Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem, but was imprisoned until 1978. On leaving prison, he formed a new Democratic League and tried to revive his political career, but rallied no significant support. He died in 1996, shortly before Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina opened fresh investigations of the 1975 political slayings. “Jail Killing Day” is still commemorated in Dhaka each November 3, by members of the Awami League. Twelve military officers were belatedly convicted for the murders in October 2004 and sentenced to death, eight of them in absentia. The four in custody—Syed Faruque Rahman, Shahriar Rashid Khan, Mohammad Bazlul Huda, and A.K.M. Mohiuddin Ahmed were executed on January 28, 2010. Further Reading Lewis, David. Bangladesh: Politics, Economy and Civil Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Mitchell, Neil. Democracy’s Blameless Leaders: From Dresden to Abu Ghraib, How Leaders Evade Accountability for Abuse, Atrocity, and Killing. New York: New York University Press, 2012. Van Schendel, Willem. A History of Bangladesh. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

AMIN, HAFIZULLAH (1929–1979) Hafizullah Amin had ruled as Afghanistan’s chief of state for 104 turbulent days when Soviet occupation forces moved to unseat him in a plot code

15

16

AMIN, HAFIZULL AH

named “Operation Storm-333.” On December 27, 1979, 170 Soviet soldiers and 520 members of an allied “Muslim battalion” stormed the Tajbeg Palace outside Kabul, defended by members of the Afghan National Army. In the ensuing battle, Amin was killed and his 11-year-old son died from shrapnel wounds. Some 200 defenders fell in the fighting, with a like number wounded and 1,700 arrested. Reports of Soviet losses ranged from an official low of 19 to more than 100, estimated by KGB senior archivist Vasili Mitrokhin years later. Born at Paghman, near Kabul, on August 1, 1929, Hafizullah Amin trained as a teacher at Kabul University, then entered politics in 1965 and was elected to Afghanistan’s parliament in 1969. By then, he was associated with Nur Muhammad Taraki, communist founder of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), rising to the party’s second-highest post by 1973. That same year, ex-prime minister Mohammed Daoud Khan deposed King Mohammed Zahir Shah in a military coup, with PDPA support. Party relations with Khan soured over the next five years, however, and Amin helped organize the “Saur Revolution” of April 1978, which toppled Khan’s regime and imposed communist rule under Taraki, serving as chairman of the council of ministers. Institution of socialist reforms created turmoil in Afghanistan. By March 1979, uprisings by Muslim mujahideen (“strugglers”) made travel unsafe for government officials in 25 of the country’s 28 provinces. Amin directed the PDPA’s military response, but felt increasing dissatisfaction with Taraki. After building a virtual cult of personality around Taraki—hailing him as “The Star of the East” or “The Great Thinker,” Amin found Taraki believing his own propaganda, growing arrogant and imperious. On March 27 he ceded chairmanship of the council to Afghanistan president Hafizullah Amin, killed Amin, while promoting himby Soviet forces in “Operation Storm-333” on self to general secretary of the December 27, 1979. (Associated Press) PDPA, a position dominating

AQUINO, BENIGNO SIMEON, JR.

and effectively emasculating Amin’s. Furious, Amin staged a coup and arrested Taraki on September 14, 1979, having him smothered with pillows (allegedly on advice from Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev). On September 16 he replaced Taraki as Afghanistan’s ruler. Amin sought to pacify the mujahideen by dissociating himself from Taraki and presenting himself as a devout Muslim, blaming Taraki for some 18,000 executions carried out since April 1978. Whereas that effort failed to win him broad support, Amin also lost ground with the USSR. Never greatly admired in Moscow, Amin seemed unaware that KGB agents had infiltrated the PDPA, reporting on his secret meetings with anticommunist leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Tataki loyalists exiled in Russia, branded Amin a CIA agent, even as the murder of U.S. ambassador Adolph Dubs strained Amin’s relationship with the United States. In early December 1979, when Amin proposed a summit meeting with Pakistani president Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Brezhnev and Russia’s politburo announced their military-intervention plan. Soviet troops crossed the border on December 24 and assaulted Amin’s Tajbeg Palace three days later. Before sending troops en masse to kill Amin, the Soviets first tried to poison him (nearly killing a nephew), then sent a sniper to assassinate him (foiled by tight security measures). A second poisoning attempt allegedly occurred mere hours before the assault of December 27, causing Amin and several guests to lose consciousness at a palace banquet celebrating Minister of Public Works Ghulam Dastagir Panjsheri’s return from Moscow, but that near miss remains unconfirmed. Amin’s successor, Babrak Karmal, promised sweeping democratic reforms but made limited progress before he was deposed, on orders from Moscow, in November 1986. Further Reading Ansary, Tamim. Games without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan. New York: Public Affairs, 2012. Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Jones, Seth. In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010. Male, Beverly. Revolutionary Afghanistan: A Reappraisal. London: Taylor & Francis, 1982. Rasanayagam, Angelo. Afghanistan: A Modern History. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005.

AQUINO, BENIGNO SIMEON, JR. (1932–1983) Opponents of longtime Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos rallied at Manila International Airport on August 21, 1983, to celebrate the return of former

17

18

AQ U I N O, B E N I G N O S I M E O N , J R .

senator Benigno Aquino Jr. Imprisoned from 1973 until a heart attack threatened his life in 1980, Aquino had been paroled to the United States for medical treatment and had remained there in self-imposed exile since then. President Marcos, unrelenting, had dispatched a prison van to collect Aquino and return him to custody, with 1,000 soldiers to provide security. Despite that wall of uniforms, supposed Communist Party member Rolando Galman allegedly shot Aquino in the head as he left the aircraft, killing him instantly. Government agents then riddled Galman with bullets. Aquino was born in Concepcion on November 27, 1932, a descendant of prosperous landowners, grandson of a general in Emilio Aguinaldo’s revolutionary army. His father served as vice president of José Laurel’s collaborationist government under Japanese occupation in World War II and died in 1947 while awaiting trial for treason. Educated in private schools, Aquino was the youngest Filipino war correspondent during the Korean War, winning the Philippine Legion of Honor at age 18 for courage under fire. Entering politics at 22, he was elected mayor of Concepcion in 1955, as vice governor of Tarlac province in 1960, as governor in 1961, as secretary general of the Liberal Party in 1966, and as the country’s youngest-ever senator in 1967. A year later, Aquino launched an outspoken opposition to President Marcos, warning that Marcos planned to establish “a garrison state” by “militarizing our civilian government offices.” Four years later, Marcos proved Aquino right with a declaration of martial law, imposing autocratic rule throughout the Philippines. The precipitating cause of that announcement was a Liberal Party rally at Manila’s Plaza Miranda on August 21, 1971. Aquino was not present when two hand grenades exploded in a crowd of 4,000, killing nine persons and wounding 120. Liberals blamed President Marcos for the bombing, while Marcos blamed the leftist New People’s Army. Marcos suspended habeas corpus and jailed Aquino with dozens of supposed “Maoists,” along with a bombing suspect later identified as a sergeant of the Philippine Constabulary’s firearms and explosive section. Aquino subsequently claimed that the bomber, once identified as a policeman, was spirited away and disappeared. Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972, and Aquino was one of the first “subversives” detained for trial by military commission on trumped-up charges of murder and gunrunning. In the midst of his protracted trial, in April 1975, Aquino declared a hunger strike to the death and shriveled to 75 pounds over the course of 40 days, before relenting and accepting nourishment. The court-martial dragged on until November 25, 1977, when Major General Jose Syjuco convicted Aquino on all charges and sentenced him to death by firing squad. More delays ensued, while Marcos granted Aquino permission to participate in the 1978 parliamentary election from his prison cell, and granted him a television interview on Face the Nation. That appearance rallied liberal support, but the party’s candidates were buried in a Marcos landslide marked

AQUINO, BENIGNO SIMEON, JR.

by flagrant fraud. Still theoretically awaiting execution, Aquino suffered a heart attack in March 1980, followed by another on arrival at Quezon City’s Philippine Heart Center. Slated for coronary bypass surgery, Aquino refused the operation out of fear that Marcos would arrange his death. Following a televised appearance on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, Aquino received a surprise visit from Marcos on May 8, 1980. Marcos granted permission for Aquino and his family to visit the United States, in return for promises that Aquino would return when cured, and that he would abstain from criticizing Marcos in the United States. Transported to Texas, Aquino recovered quickly from surgery and flew to Damascus, Syria, five weeks later. Meeting with Muslim leaders, he conceded plans for a return to Manila, then received a message from President Marcos extending his “medical furlough.” Simultaneously, Aquino rescinded his promise to Marcos, declaring that “a pact with the devil is no pact at all.” Settled in a Boston suburb, he embarked on anti-Marcos lecture tours for the next three years, funded by grants from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Finally, in August 1983, Aquino announced plans for a belated homecoming, telling reporters that “the Filipino is worth dying for.” Approaching Manila International, he warned journalists aboard his flight, “You have to be ready with your hand camera because this action can become very fast. In a matter of 3 or 4 minutes it could be all over, and I may not be able to talk to you again after this.” Aquino’s corpse lay in state for nine days at his home in Quezon City, his head wounds undisguised in a glass casket, prior to burial with the cardinal archbishop of Manila presiding. President Marcos created a fact-finding commission to investigate the assassination, but its members resigned after their appointment was challenged in court. Next, on October 14, Marcos issued presidential decree no. 1886 establishing a five-member independent board of inquiry. The panel heard 193 witnesses, reporting to Marcos on October 24, 1984, that Aquino’s murder was a military conspiracy, with Rolando Galman sacrificed as a scapegoat. Twenty-five soldiers and one civilian faced murder charges, but all were acquitted on December 2, 1985. After President Marcos was deposed in 1986, a new investigation charged 16 military men—including one brigadier general—with Aquino’s murder. All were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. They appealed that verdict, claiming the murder was ordered by Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., a cousin of former first lady Imelda Marcos. By 2009, all of those convicted were paroled. The site of Aquino’s murder is today called Ninoy Aquino International Airport, and the anniversary of his death is a Filipino national holiday. Further Reading Bonner, Raymond. Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy. New York: Vintage Books, 1988.

19

20

A R AU J O, M A N U E L E N R I Q U E

Burton, Sandra. Impossible Dream: The Marcoses, the Aquinos, and the Unfinished Revolution. New York: Warner Books, 1959. De Castro, Arturo. Mistrial: A Case Study of the Assassination of Senator Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. Manila: Current Events Digest, 1986. Festin Martinez, Manuel. The Grand Collision: Aquino vs. Marcos. Manila: Martinez, 1987. Hill, Gerald. The True Story and Analysis of the Aquino Assassination. Aylesbury, United Kingdom: Hilltop, 1984.

ARAUJO, MANUEL ENRIQUE (1865–1913) On the night of February 4, 1913, El Salvador’s president, Dr. Manuel Araujo, attended a concert at San Salvador Bolivar Park. During the performance, three men—later identified as farmers Fabian Graciano, Fermin Perez, and Mulatilo Virgilio—attacked Araujo with machetes, inflicting mortal wounds. He died on February 9, while his assailants were detained for military trial, swiftly convicted, and executed by firing squad without any significant investigation of their motives. The son of a wealthy Basque coffee grower and his Portuguese wife, Manuel Araujo was born at Alegria, in El Salvador’s Usulután Department, on October 12, 1865. He earned a medical degree from the University of El Salvador in 1891, then traveled to Europe for specialized surgical training. Upon returning home, he prospered as a physician and maintained his family’s ties with Salvadoran high society. In 1910, Fernando Figueroa—the nation’s last military ruler, in a line of dictators dating from 1885—gave his support to Araujo in November’s presidential election. Chosen by the voters without a party affiliation, Dr. Araujo took office on March 1, 1911. Although civilian rule had been restored for the time being, Araujo repaid Figueroa’s support by granting increased funding to the army and importing foreign military advisors to train Salvadoran officers. In 1912, he also created a National Guard to police rural districts, trained by retired members of the Spanish Civil Guard who doubled as Araujo’s personal bodyguards. On other fronts, President Araujo established a ministry of agriculture to expand cultivation of coffee, thus benefiting his relatives and other wealthy growers. Decline in sales of indigo had left coffee as El Salvador’s only significant export since 1880, but production had lagged by comparison to that in Guatemala and Costa Rica, as preceding government administrations failed to court external financing and technical assistance. Dr. Araujo’s policies sparked opposition in the Salvadoran countryside, despite exemption from military service for coffee plantation workers. Rural villagers had hoped for sweeping economic reforms and the redistribution of land, but instead saw wealthy growers reap rewards from tax reductions and

ARGAÑA FERRARO, LUIS MARÍA DEL CORAZÓN DE JESÚS DIONISIO

elimination of export duties. Dissatisfaction was compounded by reports that some high-ranking members of the government were both corrupt and ineffective. Nonetheless, Araujo’s regime was regarded as stable until the surprise attack claimed his life in February 1913. Various theories were advanced for his murder, but none was ever substantiated. President Carlos Meléndez succeeded Araujo, inaugurating a dynasty that ruled El Salvador in the name of the National Democratic Party until March 1931. Meléndez himself served two terms, from February 1913 to August 1914, and again from March 1915 to December 1918. Others in the lineup included Melendez’s brother-in-law, Alfonso Quiñónez Molina (three terms), and his brother Jorge Meléndez (one term). Pío Romero Bosque finished the lineup, declining to name a handpicked successor in 1930. A distant relative of Dr. Araujo, Arturo Araujo, won that election as a member of the Labor Party, but was deposed by a coup d’état in December 1931, after just 11 months in office. That uprising restored military rule in El Salvador for another halfcentury, until May 1982. Further Reading Keen, Benjamin, and Keith Haynes. A History of Latin America, Volume 2: Independence to Present. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 2009. LaFeber, Walter. Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993. Langley, Lester, and Thomas Schoonover. The Banana Men: American Mercenaries and Entrepreneurs in Central America, 1880–1930. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1995. White, Christopher. The History of El Salvador. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008.

ARGAÑA FERRARO, LUIS MARÍA DEL CORAZÓN DE JESÚS DIONISIO (1932–1999) Luis Argaña Ferraro, vice president of Paraguay, left his home in Asunción as usual on the morning of March 23, 1999. This time, however, he had barely pulled out of the driveway when several gunmen sprang from hiding, spraying Argaña’s sport utility vehicle with fire from automatic weapons, killing him instantly. President Raúl Cubas Grau ordered the country’s borders sealed, but the assassins eluded capture and remain unidentified today. Suspicion that Cubas himself might be responsible prompted Chamber of Deputies to vote his impeachment on March 24. Facing near-certain conviction in the senate and removal from office, Cubas resigned four days later and fled to Brazil while rioting rocked Asunción. Luis Argaña Ferraro was born in Asunción on October 3, 1932. He earned degrees in law and social sciences from the Universidad Nacional de Asunción

21

22

A R GA Ñ A F E R R A R O, L U I S M A R Í A D E L C O R A Z Ó N D E J E S Ú S D I O N I S I O

in 1958, and remained as a professor until he entered politics, with his election to Paraguay’s Chamber of Deputies. He later served as a judge and as president of Paraguay’s Supreme Court from 1983 to 1988, followed by a term as foreign minister (1989–1990). He lost a presidential bid in 1993, but rebounded five years later with election as vice president. Some observers speculated that Argaña’s murder may have been inspired by his service as a judge, and later head of Paraguay’s judicial system, under the despotic regime of Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda, who ruled the nation with an iron hand from 1954 to 1989, while granting sanctuary to Nazi war criminals, including Auschwitz “Angel of Death” Josef Mengele. Critics claimed that Argaña had used his position to abet and whitewash Stroessner’s reign of terror, including political murders, torture, and unjust imprisonment amply documented by “archives of terror” discovered at a police station in the Asunción suburb of Lambaré on December 22, 1992. Another theory blamed Argaña’s death on ex-general Lino César Oviedo Silva, commander of Paraguay’s army from 1993 until April 1996, when President Juan Carlos Wasmosy forced his resignation. Oviedo had threatened a coup d’état, then relented when Wasmosy offered him a post as minister of defense—then reneged on the day of Oviedo’s scheduled swearing-in ceremony. Embittered, Oviedo ran for president in 1998 and won the ruling Colorado Party’s nomination, then was slapped with a 10-year prison term a month before election day, for his abortive coup attempt in 1996. Running mate Raúl Cubas went on to win the election and liberated Oviedo days after taking office in August 1998, over protests from opposition leaders and the Paraguayan Supreme Court. Luis Argaña was inaugurated as vice president of Paraguay under Cubas, on August 15. Argentina granted asylum to General Oviedo upon his departure from prison, and refused an extradition request from Paraguay’s National Congress following Argaña’s murder. Oviedo subsequently left for Brazil, where expresident Cubas had settled following his impeachment, then returned to Paraguay voluntarily on June 28, 2004. Arrested on arrival, he was taken to the military prison at Viñas Cué, near Asunción, to complete his original 10-year sentence. Authorities paroled him for good behavior on September 6, 2007, and Paraguay’s Supreme Court overturned Oviedo’s conviction on October 30, 2007, by a vote of eight to one, deciding that no coup d’état was actually attempted in 1996. Thus vindicated, Oviedo resumed his campaign for the presidency. In January 2008, he was nominated without opposition by a Colorado Party splinter group, the National Union of Ethical Citizens. Whereas Oviedo’s party won 25 congressional seats in April’s election, Oviedo lost his bid to rival Fernando Armindo Lugo Méndez, candidate of the Patriotic Alliance for Change. Oviedo received only 22.8 percent of the popular vote nationwide.

ASSASSINS CULT

Further Reading Calvert, Peter. A Political and Economic Dictionary of Latin America. London: Europa Publications, 2004. Lambert, Peter. “‘¡Muero con mi patria!’ Myth, Political Violence, and the Construction of National Identity in Paraguay.” In Political Violence and the Construction of Identity in Latin America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Miranda, Carlos. The Stroessner Era: Authoritarian Rule in Paraguay. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990. Mora, Frank, and Jerry Cooney. Paraguay and the United States: Distant Allies. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007.

ASSASSINS CULT (CA. 1092–1275) Assassination owes its name to a religious sect founded in Persia shortly before the First Crusade (1096–1099). Although information on the movement’s origin is vague and issues chiefly from the pens of hostile authors, its foundation is traceable to Hassan-i Sabbah, an evangelist of Isma’ilism (the second-largest branch of Shi’a Islam). Various authors writing from the 17th through the 19th century claimed that the cult drew its name from the derogatory Arabic term Hashishin (“users of hashish”), first applied to Syrian Isma’ilis by Fatamid Caliph Al-Amir bi-Ahkami l-Lah in 1122, later corrupted to “assassins.” Modern author Edward Burman disagrees, writing that “the attribution of the epithet ‘hashish eaters’ or ‘hashish takers’ is a misnomer derived from enemies of the Isma’ilis and was never used by Muslim chroniclers or sources. It was therefore used in a pejorative sense of ‘enemies’ or ‘disreputable people’. This sense of the term survived into modern times with the common Egyptian usage of the term Hashasheen in the 1930s to mean simply ‘noisy or riotous’. It is unlikely that the austere Hassan-i Sabbah indulged personally in drug taking. . . . [T]here is no mention of that drug hashish in connection with the Persian Assassins.” Whatever Sabbah’s personal habits or motives for founding the cult may have been, he found a secure base for the order in 1090, with capture of a Zaidiyyah Shi’a mountain fortress at Alamut, 60 miles from present-day Tehran, Iran. Proclaiming himself grand headmaster of the order, Sabbah schooled his disciples in a pyramidal hierarchy with ranks including “greater propagandists,” “propagandists,” “companions,” and “adherents”—the latter also known as fedayin (“the martyrs” or “men who accept death”), who would perform the task of murder. The sect’s first known victim was a Sunni Muslim, Seljuq vizier Nizam alMulk, ambushed and murdered while en route from Isfahan to Baghdad on October 14, 1092. More slayings followed, carried out during religious or political feuds and as contract killings commissioned by wealthy clients. From Persia the sect spread to Syria, establishing cells in various cities during the

23

24

A S S A S S I N S C U LT

early 12th century. Grand master Sabbah died at Alamut in 1124, succeeded by Kiya Buzurg-Ummid, and the sect grew stronger than ever. Its next wellknown victim, in 1125, was Abu’l-Fad.l Ibn al-Khashsha¯b, the foremost Shi’a qadi ( judge) at Aleppo, Syria. A year later, also in Aleppo, a fedayin assassin killed Emir Porsuki on November 26, 1126. Later in the 12th century, Assassins seized nine castles in Syria’s An-Nusayriyah Mountains. From one of those, at Masyaf, “Old Man of Mountain” Rashid ad-Din Sinan ran his own branch of the order, virtually independent of the grand master at Alamut. Pledged to kill Saladin, the Kurdish Muslim sultan of Syria and Egypt, Sinan twice dispatched assassins who failed to complete their assignment. Saladin laid siege to Masyaf in August 1176, then retired after finding a threatening note in his tent, pinned to a table with a poisoned dagger. Sinan’s last major contract claimed the life of Conrad of Montferrat, elected king of Jerusalem on April 24, 1192, and killed four days later, allegedly on orders from King Richard I of England. Sinan himself died that same year, his successor handpicked by then– grand master Nur al-din Muhammad at Alamut. Mongol invaders under Hulagu Khan laid siege to Alamut, commanded at the time by Imam Rukn al-Din Khurshah, on December 15, 1256. Khurshah surrendered his stronghold soon thereafter, and although fedayin warriors briefly recaptured the fortress in 1275, they were soon routed, the survivors scattered and vanishing into obscurity. Mamluk Sultan Baibars of Egypt seized control of the order’s Syrian wing in 1273 and used its members as killers for hire. Moroccan author Ibn Battuta (1304–1368) claims that remaining Assassins finally resulted to taqiyya, a tactic of religious dissimulation masking their beliefs in mainstream Muslim society while waiting—in vain, it appears—for a new leader to “awaken” them. It comes as no surprise, perhaps, that the Assassins cult has featured frequently in literature, film, on television—even in modern computer and video games. Friedrich Nietzsche seemed to admire the order when, in 1887, his On the Genealogy of Morality referred to “that invincible Order of Assassins.” Vladimir Bartol, by contrast, seemed to take a decidedly negative view in his novel Alamut (1938), though later critics maintain that he compared the order favorably to antifascist resistance fighters in his native Slovenia. Louis L’Amour, best known for novels set in the American Old West, departed from type with The Walking Drum (1984), in which 12th-century hero Mathurin Kerbouchard seeks to rescue his father from the Assassins. Peter Berling’s The Children of the Grail (1996) also examines the Assassins in their historical setting, and other novels—Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons (2000) and A. W. Hill’s Nowhere-Land (2009)—imagine the order’s survival into modern times. In comics, the Assassins have contended both with ancient warrior Conan the Barbarian and quasisupernatural Wild West gunman Jonah Hex.

ASSASSINS CULT

On the big screen, Assassins have appeared as antagonists in the feature films Secondhand Lions (2003) and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2009), the latter a Hollywood adaptation of a popular video game launched in 1989. Other role-playing games featuring the order include Broken Sword, Dungeons & Dragons, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Final Fantasy, The First Templar, Gothic 3, Infinity, Knights of the Temple, Legend of the Burning Sands, Medieval II: Total War, and Vampire: The Masquerade. On television, BBC’s Robin of Sherwood featured Assassins in an episode titled “The Greatest Enemy,” originally aired on April 13, 1985. Further Reading Burman, Edward. The Assassins—Holy Killers of Islam. Wellingborough, United Kingdom: Crucible, 1987. Lewis, Bernard. The Assassins, a Radical Sect of Islam. London: Oxford University Press, 1967. Lung, Haha. Assassin! The Deadly Art of the Cult of the Assassins: The Deadly Art of the Cult of the Assassins. New York: Citadel, 2004.

25

This page intentionally left blank

B BAHONAR, MOHAMMAD-JAVAD (1933–1981) On August 30, 1981, a bomb exploded in the Tehran office of Iranian prime minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. The blast killed Bahonar, as well as President Mohammad-Ali Rajai and three other members of the Islamic Republican Party. Survivors described the explosion occurring when one victim opened a briefcase, brought into the office by Massoud Kashmiri, a state security official. Subsequent investigation revealed that Kashmiri was an agent of the leftist People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), supported by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and blamed for 17,000 Iranian deaths during the Iran–Iraq War of 1980–1988. Bahonar was born in Kerman, Iran, on September 3, 1933. A Muslim cleric and author of textbooks on Islamic studies, he also engaged in politics and was jailed in 1963, during protests led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s “White Revolution”—a program of supposed reforms designed primarily to strengthen and legitimize the Pahlavi dynasty. Upon release from custody, Bahonar abstained from further activism until the Islamic Revolution of 1978–1979 drove the shah into exile and established Khomeini as Iran’s de facto ruler. For his service in the revolution, Bahonar was named to lead the new government’s ministry of culture and Islamic guidance, essentially responsible for censoring any media disapproved by Muslim leaders in Tehran. From that post, he also directed a purge of all secular influence from Iranian universities. The outbreak of war with Iraq, in September 1980, hampered but did not derail the ultraconservative Iranian Cultural Revolution. Mayhem on the home front escalated as the MEK—founded by leftist Iranian students in 1965 to oppose Shah Pahlavi—shifted focus to attack to attack Khomeini’s rigid theocracy and its political organ, the Islamic Republican Party (IRP). Iran’s first elected president, Abulhassan Banisadr, took office in February 1980 but was impeached in June 1981 for bucking clerical authority. One week after his removal, MEK militants bombed IRP headquarters, killing 70 high-ranking members. In that tense atmosphere, presidential successor Mohammad-Ali Rajai chose Mohammad-Javad Bahonar as his running mate. They won the election with 91 percent of the popular vote, but survived less than four weeks after taking office on August 4, 1981.

28

BALBINUS

Although the Bahonar–Rajai assassination was solved with identification of bomber Massoud Kashmiri as an MEK agent, he remained unpunished. Various mujahedin were arrested and executed in reprisal, but Kashmiri apparently slipped through the dragnet. MEK murders of Iranian officials continued sporadically over the next year, while Iraqi troops occupied Iranian territory, supported and encouraged by special envoy Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of U.S. president Ronald Reagan. Following Iraq’s withdrawal and Iran’s ultimate victory in summer 1982, the MEK moved its headquarters to France, remaining there until l986. Still supported by Saddam Hussein, the group carried out several high-profile Iranian assassinations in the 1990s and fielded an army of 6,000 men against U.S. troops in 2003. Formally designated as a terrorist group in 2006, the MEK suffered numerous arrests and coalition air strikes in Iraq, as late as 2009. Further Reading Abrahamian, Ervand. The Iranian Mojahedin. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992. Brownlee, Jason. Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Keddie, Nikki. Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003. Parsa, Misagh. Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1989. Wright, Robin. The Iran Primer: Power, Politics, and U.S. Policy. Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace, 2010.

BALBINUS (165 CE–238 CE) The year 238 is known in ancient Roman history as the Year of the Six Emperors. Fourth in line and sharing power with Co-Emperor Pupienus Maximus, Balbinus—formally known as Decimus Caelius Calvinus Balbinus Pius Augustus—held office for only three months before both emperors were slain by mutinous members of the Praetorian Guard on July 29. A patrician by birth, Balbinus was the son of Caelius Calvinus, who served as legate to Cappadocia in 184. Author Herodian’s colorful eight-volume History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus credits Balbinus with governing seven separate provinces, while also serving as proconsul of Africa and Asia, but no other evidence supports those claims. Modern historians dismiss those stories as inventions, while granting Balbinus two terms as consul. The first is vague, variously dated from 203 and 211; the second, in 213, found Balbinus serving Emperor Caracalla (himself assassinated in April 217). Rome’s Year of the Six Emperors began with rebellion against Maximinus Thrax, assassinated in April 238, with his son and chief ministers, by soldiers

BALBINUS

Emperor Balbinus of Rome, assassinated by his palace guards in 238 C.E. (Getty Images)

of the Second Parthian Legion. The senate then approached 79-year-old Gordian, regional governor of North Africa, who demurred until his son was accepted as co-emperor. Accordingly, Gordian I and II were named to rule in tandem, but they reigned for only 36 days. Gordian II died fighting soldiers loyal to Maximus at the Battle of Carthage, and Gordian I hanged himself on learning of his son’s demise. Next, on April 22, the senate elected elderly members Balbinus and Pupienus as co-emperors, a decision so unpopular with Gordian loyalists that they thronged Rome’s streets, pelting both men with sticks and stones. As a pacifying measure, senators named Marcus Antonius Gordianus Pius Augustus, 13-year-old grandson of Gordian I, to nominally reign as Caesar, thus presumably defusing anger against Balbinus and Pupienus.

29

30

B A L E WA , A B U B A K A R TA FAWA

That stopgap measure failed to guarantee smooth governance, however. Dissension simmered between Balbinus and Pupienus from the first day of their joint reign, each emperor fearing assassination by the other. Seeking to crown their election with military laurels, thereby achieving some legitimacy, they planned an ambitious dual campaign, Balbinus plotting to subjugate the Carpians (inhabiting the eastern region of present-day Moldavia), and Pupienus targeted the Parthians (occupying northeastern Iran). Collaborating on logistics failed to heal the rift between the emperors, however. Balbinus and Pupienus were engaged in yet another bitter quarrel on July 29, when disgusted Praetorian Guards burst in and hacked both men to death. With Gordian III still too young to rule, control of the empire was ceded to aristocratic families who directed Rome’s affairs through the senate. Gordian married Furia Sabinia Tranquillina, daughter of the newly appointed praetorian prefect Timesitheus, who assumed de facto rule of Rome until his death in 243. The following year, Gordian died combating Persian invaders at the Battle of Misiche. Quickly deified by the senate, he was succeeded by Marcus Julius Philippus Augustus, also called Philip the Arab. Further Reading Frey, Oliver. Complete Chronicle of the Emperors of Rome. Ludlow, United Kingdom: Thalamus Publishing, 2005. Grant, Michael. The Roman Emperors: A Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome 31 BC–AD 476. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1985. Kerrigan, Michael. Dark History of the Roman Emperors. London: Amber Books, 2012. Potter, David. Emperors of Rome: Imperial Rome from Julius Caesar to the Last Emperor. London: Quercus Books, 2008. Scarre, Chris. Chronicle of the Roman Emperors: The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers of Imperial Rome. London: Thames & Hudson, 1995.

BALEWA, ABUBAKAR TAFAWA (1912–1966) Nigeria’s first and only prime minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, fell victim to the nation’s persistent tribal animosities after ruling for five tempestuous years. His death occurred during a military coup on January 15, 1966, led by junior military officers of Igbo extraction under Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. Igbos, from southern Nigeria, opposed rule by Hausa and Falani tribal members from the north. The circumstances of Balewa’s death remain unclear, as his corpse was found beside a road near Lagos on January 24. The rebels also killed Premier Ahmadu Bello of Nigeria’s Northern Region, Premier Ladoke Akintola of the Western Region, and Finance Minister Festus Okotie-Eboh. Before Balewa’s body was discovered, on January 16, Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi proclaimed himself Military Head of State.

B A L E WA , A B U B A K A R TA FAWA

Abubakar Balewa was born in Bauchi, in December 1912, the son of a Muslim district leader, educated at the local Koranic school and at Katsina College, where he earned a teaching certificate. He taught at Bauchi Middle School until 1944, then went to study for a year at the University of London’s Institute of Education. On his return, he served briefly as a school inspector, then won election to the Northern House of Assembly in 1946, progressing to the legislative assembly in 1947. With colleague Ahmadu Bello, Balewa founded the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) as a vehicle to pursue rights for residents of north- Nigerian Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, killed by rebel soldiers in 1966. (Bettmann/Corbis) ern Nigeria, primarily Muslims. Their chief rivals were the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), representing mostly Christian Igbos from the south. In 1952, Balewa was elected minister of works, later serving as minister of transport. In 1957, voters chose him as chief minister, forming a coalition government between the NPC and NCNC, led by Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe. Queen Elizabeth II knighted Balewa in January 1960, and he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Sheffield four months later. Britain released Nigeria from colonial rule on October 1, 1960, with Nnamdi Azikiwe named as president of the First Nigerian Republic, and Balewa took office as prime minister. From that post, doubling as minister of foreign affairs, Balewa led protests against the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960, allied himself with Commonwealth of Nations ministers who sought expulsion of South Africa, participated in negotiations during the Congo crisis of 1960–1966, and played a leading role in creating the Organization of African Unity, founded in 1963. Although those efforts saw him dubbed “the Golden Voice of Africa,” Balewa lost support from allies in the western region of his homeland after NPC ally Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo was convicted of treason in 1965, for allegedly conspiring with Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana to topple Nigeria’s federal government. During 1965’s national elections, Awolowo’s

31

32

B A N D A R A N A I K E , S O L O M O N W E S T R I D G E W AY D I A S

followers threw their support to the southern NCNC in a campaign marked by rioting. That turmoil set the stage for Balewa’s assassination and the collapse of the First Nigerian Republic. Major General Aguiyi-Ironsi died in a countercoup six months after seizing power, accompanied by Muslim massacres of Christian Igbos living in the north. Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, military governor of the Igbo-dominated southeast, proclaimed his district the independent Republic of Biafra in May 1967, thereby plunging Nigeria into civil war. Further Reading Clark, Trevor. A Right Honourable Gentleman: The Life and Times of Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. Zaria, Nigeria: Hudahuda Publishing, 1991. Falola, Tony, and Ann Genova, Historical Dictionary of Nigeria. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009. Herbst, Jeffrey. States and Power in Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. Meredith, Martin. The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence. New York: Public Affairs, 2011.

BANDARANAIKE, SOLOMON WEST RIDGEWAY DIAS (1899–1959) On September 25, 1959, Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike kept his normal schedule of greeting constituents at Tintagel, his private residence in Colombo, largest city of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). One of the visitors was Talduwe Somarama, a Sinhalese Buddhist monk allied with Mapitigama Buddharakkitha, chief priest of the Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara temple and exsupporter of Bandaranaike who had soured on the prime minister’s failure to pursue nationalist reforms. Exempted from the usual pat-down search because of his religious status, Somarama carried a revolver to his meeting with Bandaranaike, firing it as Bandaranaike knelt to greet him in the traditional Buddhist style. Aides disarmed Somarama and rushed Bandaranaike to the nearest hospital, where he died on September 26 after protracted surgery. A native of Colombo, Ceylon, born on January 8, 1899, Solomon Bandaranaike was the son of Sir Solomon Dias Bandaranaike, an Anglican Christian and chief native interpreter/advisor to the governor of Ceylon under British colonial rule. Educated at the College of St. Thomas the Apostle in Ceylon, then at Christ Church, Oxford University, Bandaranaike qualified as a barrister in England before returning home to Colombo and joining the Ceylon National Congress. He converted to Buddhism shortly thereafter, courting political support from the island nation’s 70-percent religious majority, and was elected to the Colombo Municipal Council in 1926, subsequently serving on the State Council of Ceylon from 1931 to 1947. In 1934, he founded the Sinhala Maha

B A N D A R A N A I K E , S O L O M O N W E S T R I D G E WAY D I A S

Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike of Ceylon, shot by a Buddhist priest in 1959. (Associated Press)

Sabha organization to promote Sinhalese culture and community interests. Backing the United National Party (UNP) in 1946, he held ministerial posts with that group from 1947 to 1951, then broke with the UNP to form a new Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SFLP). The SFLP initially sought to bridge national ethnic divisions by supporting official use of both the Sinhala and Tamil languages, but later passed Official Language Act No. 33 of 1956, popularly called the “Sinhala Only Act.” September 1958 brought partial reversal of that exclusionist policy, with passage of the Tamil Language (Special Provisions) Act, dubbed “Sinhala Only, Tamil Also.” Bandaranaike won election by a landslide in 1956, thanks to SFLP collaboration with the Trotskyite Lanka Sama Samaja Party and the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, a move that soon alienated prominent supporter Mapitigama Buddharakkitha. Although the SFLP presented itself as a staunch defender of Buddhist principles, the leftward drift in government prompted Buddharakkitha to plot Bandaranaike’s murder, recruiting Talduwe Somarama as the reluctant triggerman. In the wake of Bandaranaike’s death, Buddharakkitha initially decried the shooting over Radio Ceylon, but an investigation by officers of Scotland Yard exposed him as the plot’s ringleader. At trial, prosecutors described Buddharakkitha

33

34

B AU T I S TA G I L L GA R C Í A D E L B A R R I O, J UA N

as a wealthy businessman and heavy drinker (an offense for Buddhist monks), who had engaged in a sexual affair with Minister of Health Wimala Wijewardene, the only female member of Bandaranaike’s cabinet. Convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1961, Buddharakkitha saw his sentence commuted to life imprisonment on appeal. He died in prison, from a heart attack, in 1967. Talduwe Somarama was hanged on July 7, 1962. A third conspirator, businessman H. P. Jayawardena, also received a life sentence. Further Reading De Alwis, Malathi. “Gender, Politics, and the ‘Respectable Lady’.” In Unmaking the Nation: The Politics of Identity & History in Modern Sri Lanka. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Social Scientists’ Association, 1995. Manor, James. “The Bandaranaike Legend.” In The Sri Lanka Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011. Manor, James. The Expedient Utopian: Bandaranaike and Ceylon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Tambiah, Stanley. Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Weiss, Gordon. The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers. New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2012.

BAUTISTA GILL GARCÍA DEL BARRIO, JUAN (1840–1877) On April 12, 1877, while passing through downtown Villarrica, Paraguay, President Juan Bautista Gill was ambushed and shot by three gunmen, killed instantly on impact. The assassins, who escaped and fled to Argentina, were identified as Nicanor Silvano Godoi, brother of an exiled political opponent, and two lackeys identified only as Goiburu and Molas. Bautista was the grandson of Don Juan Miguel Gill, a leader in the revolution against Spanish rule in 1811. Born to wealthy parents in Asunción on October 28, 1840, he completed his secondary education and medical training in Buenos Aires, Argentina, then returned to Paraguay in 1863. A year later, when his homeland entered the War of the Triple Alliance against Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, Bautista joined the elite 40th Battalion, then was transferred to the army’s military health division. Captured by enemy forces in December 1868, at the Battle of Ita Ybaté, he was paroled in January 1869 with a promise to abstain from further service in the war. Paraguay was defeated in March 1870, with estimates of total losses ranging from 450,000 to 900,000 dead. Historian William Rubinstein suggests that only 220,000 Paraguayans survived the war, of whom 28,000 were adult males. In the wake of that disaster, Bautista entered politics, serving initially as finance minister and chairman of the senate. He was elected president in 1874,

B E C K E T, T H O M A S

taking office on November 25 with cousin José Higinio Uriarte y García del Barrio as vice president. Their administration initiated use of paper currency and substantially increased taxation, while adopting the Argentine Civil Code in a bid to stabilize Paraguay’s ravaged economy. Another statute, the Tobacco Law of April 1875, granted the government a five-year monopoly on tobacco exports while barring private dealers from the trade. The same law imposed a three-year government monopoly on trading in salt and soap. Those measures were predictably unpopular, as was the border treaty signed with Argentina on February 3, 1876, surrendering Misiones Province and adjacent territory, plus some islands in the Paraná River. Bautista’s establishment of a National College in Asunción failed to offset criticism of his other policies. General Germain Serrano, former minister of the interior, led an insurrection against Bautista’s regime at Caacupé in December 1875, but that uprising collapsed with the death of Serrano and other rebel leaders. Conspiracies against the president continued, however, with Don Juan Silvano Godoi hatching the plot that finally succeeded in April 1877. Following Bautista’s assassination, Silvano spent 18 years in Buenos Aires, finally returning to Paraguay in 1895. Six years later he was appointed general director of the National Library of Paraguay. Vice President Higinio Uriarte completed Bautista’s four-year term, succeeded by Cándido Pastor Bareiro Caballero, former Paraguayan chargé d’affaires in Europe. Under his administration, Paraguay reclaimed some territory from Argentina's Río de la Plata basin, subsequently named the Presidente Hayes Department, after U.S. president Rutherford Hayes, who helped negotiate the transition. Further Reading Bethell, Leslie. The Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol. 5: c. 1870–1930. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Lewis, Paul. Political Parties and Generations in Paraguay’s Liberal Era, 1869–1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Tuohy, John. Biographical Sketches from the Paraguayan War—1864–1870. Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2011.

BECKET, THOMAS (1118–1170) On December 29, 1170, four British knights—Sir Richard le Breton, Sir Hugh de Morville, Sir William de Tracy, and Sir Reginald FitzUrse—arrived at Canterbury Cathedral to confront Thomas Becket, archbishop of the diocese. A month earlier, Becket had excommunicated three rival clerics from York and Salisbury, who had preempted Canterbury’s privilege of coronation by crowning Henry the Young as king of England. The four assassins, acting in accordance with supposed orders from Henry, first told Becket that he must accompany them to Winchester, to

35

36

B E C K E T, T H O M A S

explain his actions, but Becket refused. As Becket proceeded to a vespers ceremony, the knights retrieved hidden swords and overtook him on a staircase, stabbing him to death. Becket was born to Norman parents in Cheapside, London, on the feast day of St. Thomas the Apostle (December 21) in 1118. He studied at Merton Priory, in Surrey, and later in Paris, though he curiously failed to master Latin. When Thomas returned from France, his father used family connections to find him a position on the staff of Theobald of Bec, then archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop Thomas Becket, slain by royal order in Theobald sent Becket on misDecember 1170. (Getty Images) sions to Rome, and compelled him to learn cannon law before naming him archdeacon of Canterbury and provost of Beverly in 1154. Impressed with his performance in those posts, King Henry II named Becket Lord Chancellor in January 1155, assigned to enforce taxation of bishoprics and landowners. Henry also sent his son to live with Becket as a foster child, their close bond prompting Henry the Younger to say that Becket showed him more love in a day than his father had since birth. Theobald of Bec died in April 1161, after a long illness, and the archbishop’s post remained vacant until a royal council of bishops and noblemen elected Becket on May 23, 1162, and he formally assumed office on June 3. Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester, performed Becket’s consecration, but later turned against him as Becket extended his authority over various suffragan (subordinate) bishops of the archbishopric. By October 1863, Becket was embroiled in a dispute with King Henry concerning jurisdiction of secular courts over clergymen. That prompted Henry to draft the Constitutions of Clarendon, 16 articles to assert secular authority and weaken the English clergy’s ties to Rome. Becket agreed in principle but refused to sign the document, whereupon Henry summoned him to answer charges of malfeasance and contempt for royal authority in October 1164. Convicted of those charges at Northampton Castle, Becket fled to France, spending two years under protection from King Louis VII. Pope Alexander III intervened in 1167, finally negotiating a compromise that permitted Becket’s return to Canterbury in early December 1170.

B E C K E T, T H O M A S

Meanwhile, Henry II had decided to crown his son, Henry the Young, as king—a move that required approval from Canterbury’s archbishop. Becket resisted, whereupon the coronation proceeded without him in June 1170, performed by archbishop of York Roger de Pont L’Évêque, joined by bishop of London Gilbert Foliot and bishop of Salisbury Josceline de Bohon. Becket excommunicated all three in November, whereupon the three fled to Normandy. At that point, Henry uttered his famous rhetorical question, transcribed in various histories as “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” or “What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?” Whatever the precise wording, Becket’s assassins interpreted Henry’s words as a royal command and proceeded to kill Becket upon his return to England. Pope Alexander III canonized Becket on February 21, 1173. Two months later, French noblemen led a rebellion against Henry II in France (see sidebar), prompting Henry to perform acts of penance at Becket’s tomb and at the Church of St. Dunstan’s, Canterbury, in July 1174. Becket’s killers fled to North Yorkshire and were excommunicated in March 1171 by Pope Alexander, who further sentenced them to 14 years’ exile in Jerusalem. They were never charged in England, nor required to forfeit any of their lands. Thomas Becket’s remains were exhumed in 1220 and transferred to a shrine at Canterbury Cathedral’s Trinity Chapel.

REVOLT OF 1173–1174 Henry the Young mourned Thomas Becket’s assassination as the slaying of his surrogate father. Married by that time to a daughter of French king Louis VII (also first husband of young Henry’s mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine), young Henry was 18 in April 1173, when the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne rose against his father, invading Normandy. Young Henry joined in the attack, while William the Lion, king of Scots, launched an offensive in Northumberland. Henry II defeated those offensives, but the rebellion continued as the Earl of Leicester raised an army of Flemish mercenaries and crossed from Normandy to England, joining forces with Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk. That thrust also failed, when it was met by superior forces under Richard de Luci, chief justiciar of England. Even then, fighting continued until July 1174, when Henry II returned from France and pacified most opponents with public acts of penance for Becket’s slaying. Henry and his son reconciled in September 1174, but the younger Henry led a new rebellion in 1183. He died from dysentery in June of that year, during a campaign against his father and brother Richard, later called “The Lionheart.”

37

38

BELZU HUMEREZ, MANUEL ISIDORO

Becket remains a popular figure in modern fiction, appearing in T. S. Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral (1935); Jean Anouilh’s play Becket (1959), filmed under the same title in 1964; Ken Follett’s novel The Pillars of the Earth (1989), adapted as an eight-part television miniseries in 2010; and Paul Webb’s play Four Nights in Knaresborough (1999). In 2006, BBC History magazine polled prominent historians for a list of “worst Britons” throughout the previous millennium, choosing one candidate per century. John G. H. Hudson, professor of Legal History at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, nominated Becket for the 12th century, calling him “hypocritical,” “greedy,” a “master of the sound bite,” and the “founder of gesture politics.” In the final poll, Becket ranked second, trailing unidentified 19th-century serial killer Jack the Ripper. Further Reading Barlow, Frank. Thomas Becket. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Guy, John. Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel. New York: Random House, 2012. Knowles, David. Thomas Becket. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1971. Morris, John. The Life and Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket. Charleston, SC: BiblioLife, 2010. Staunton, Michael. Thomas Becket and His Biographers. Woodbridge, United Kingdom: The Boydell Press, 2006. Urry, William. Thomas Becket. St. Albans, United Kingdom: Sutton Publishing, 1999.

BELZU HUMEREZ, MANUEL ISIDORO (1808–1865) Former Bolivian president Manuel Belzu Humerez felt power within his grasp once again on the morning of March 23, 1865. Though out of office for a decade, he saw opportunity in Bolivia’s unsettled political climate, after a military coup d’état ousted incumbent José María Achá and drove him into exile on December 28, 1864. The coup’s leader, General Mariano Melgarejo, had declared himself president, prompting Belzu to raise a private army and march on the seat of government at La Paz. Now, with battle imminent, he had received an invitation from Melgarejo to discuss a power-sharing scheme. Upon Belzu’s arrival at the presidential palace, Melgarejo’s soldiers shot him down. A child of humble mestizo parents, born in La Paz on April 14, 1808, Manuel Belzu was educated by Franciscan friars, then joined in Bolivia’s long-running war for independence from Spain. At age 18 he participated in the Battle of Zepita, where Peruvian troops under Andrés de Santa Cruz defeated Spanish royalist forces on August 23, 1823. Belzu subsequently served as an aide to Peruvian general (and future two-time president) Agustín Gamarra Messia, but he left Gamarra’s service when the general invaded Bolivia on May 28, 1828. Employed next as a garrison commander at Tarija, Belzu improved his status by marrying the daughter of wealthy

BELZU HUMEREZ, MANUEL ISIDORO

Argentinean expatriates residing in that southern district of Bolivia. His personal acquaintance with the new presidents of Bolivia (Andrés de Santa Cruz) and Peru (Agustín Gamarra) also enhanced his prospects. Gamarra’s dream involved unification of the two countries, achieved after a fashion in 1836, with creation of the Peru–Bolivian Confederation, ruled by “Supreme Protector” Andrés de Santa Cruz. Internal dissent coupled with opposition from Argentina doomed that tenuous alliance by August 1839, driving Santa Cruz into European exile. Gamarra then invaded Bolivia once more, and Belzu found himself opposing his former commander, as he was appointed by President José Ballivián to lead Bolivia’s army. The hostile forces met on November 18, 1841, for the Battle of Ingavi, where Gamarra was slain and his army repulsed. Belzu’s close relationship with President Ballivián soured in 1845, after Ballivián tried to seduce Belzu’s wife. Belzu fired a shot at Ballivián, and while he missed, their personal feud blossomed into political conflict. Joining forces with rebels led by former president José Miguel de Velasco Franco, Belzu drove Ballivián into exile in December 1847. Belzu initially agreed to let Velasco become president, while serving as his minister of war, but then he doublecrossed his ally and seized power for himself. Placating his mestizo base with cosmetic reforms and liberal platitudes, Belzu secured popular election in 1848, while behaving in fact as a traditional caudillo—an authoritarian political–military leader. Rival warlords and supporters of wealthy presidential hopeful José María Linares Lizarazu mounted successive rebellions during Belzu’s time in office, and he narrowly escaped assassination at Sucre, in September 1850, by army officer (and future president) Pedro Agustín Morales Hernández. Belzu ostensibly retired in August 1855, after arranging the election of his son-in-law, General Jorge Córdova. José Linares deposed Córdova by force in October 1857, proclaiming himself president for life, but was himself unseated and banished in 1861 by José Achá. Mariano Melgarejo, in turn, deposed Achá on December 28, 1864, and thereby set the stage for Belzu’s final actions, which climaxed with his murder. President Melgarejo’s regime was marked by worse incompetence than any of his predecessors, but he ruled by ruthless force until January 15, 1871, when he was ousted by General Agustín Morales. Resettled in Lima, Peru, Melgarejo survived another 11 months, then was murdered by his lover’s brother on November 23. Further Reading Alexander, Robert. A History of Organized Labor in Bolivia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. Klein, Herbert. Bolivia: The Evolution of a Multi-Ethnic Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

39

40

BEÑAR AN ORDEÑANA, JOSÉ MIGUEL

Klein, Herbert. A Concise History of Bolivia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Scheina, Robert. Latin America’s Wars: The Age of the Caudillo, 1791–1899. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2003.

BEÑARAN ORDEÑANA, JOSÉ MIGUEL (1949–1978) On December 21, 1978, a car bomb killed Basque separatist leader José Beñaran Ordeñana in Anglet, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques Department of southwestern France. A fugitive from justice in his native Spain, Beñaran had lived in hiding both from the authorities and from various right-wing paramilitary opponents. His murder remains officially unsolved, but media reports suggest involvement by members of the Spanish government, including an agent of the nation’s principal intelligence agency, another from naval intelligence, and a third from the military chiefs of staff. Suspected participants in the actual bombing include French mercenary Jean-Pierre Cherid, a member of the Organisation de l’armée secrète that attempted to kill President Charles de Gaulle; José Maria Boccardo, affiliated with the “Triple A” (Argentine Anticommunist Alliance); and Mario Ricci, a member of Italy’s neo-fascist National Vanguard. Born at Arrigorriaga, south of Bilbao in northern Spain’s Basque Country, Beñaran was indoctrinated with the principles of Basque nationalism from infancy and studied Marxism in his youth. In 1968, he joined the ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, “Basque Homeland and Freedom”), and eluded capture the following year, when dictator Francisco Franco’s secret police arrested most of the ETA’s leaders in Bilbao and Cantabria. In the wake of those raids, Beñaran joined in “Operation Botella,” freeing several inmates from prison in December 1970. On September 30, 1971, he led a team that stole 10 million pesetas from the Banco de Vizcaya. Four months later, on January 19, 1972, he helped kidnap industrialist Lorenzo Zabala Suinaga from Abadiño, Biscay, releasing him three days later with Zabala’s promise to improve conditions for his workers. Civil guard officers missed Beñaran in October 1972, while killing several of his friends at Hasparren, France. The ETA retaliated with “Operation Ogre,” assassinating Spanish prime minister Luis Carrero Blanco on December 20, 1973. Hunted by Franco’s agents and their hired guns, Beñaran moved frequently, spending time in Paris and Madrid, in Biscay, and in smaller towns such as Eibar and Elgoibar, Spain. After his death, a former Spanish soldier using the pseudonym “Leonidas” claimed that the explosives used to kill Beñaran were obtained from a U.S. military base in Spain, either at Rota or Torrejón. The explosives were willingly provided, he said, as a favor to one Pedro el Marino, a far-right activist who had aided U.S. intelligence agencies in anticommunist actions. Marino was affiliated with the Batallón Vasco Español, a terrorist group previously linked to the murders of ETA officer Juan Lopetegui Carrasco in August 1977, and that of Yolanda González Martín, a member of the Socialist Party of the

BEÑARAN ORDEÑANA, JOSÉ MIGUEL

THE ETA (1959–2011) Organized to carry out armed action in support of independence for the Greater Basque Country in the western Pyrenees Mountains, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) has been designated as a terrorist organization by Spain, France, the European Union, and the United States. Founded on July 31, 1959, ETA held its first assembly in France three years later, adopting a “declaration of principles” including creation of underground activist cells, and the motto Bietan jarrai (“Keep up on both”), referring to its symbol, which depicts a snake (representing politics) wrapped around an axe (representing armed struggle). The group’s first confirmed killing occurred in June 1968, after a policeman stopped member Txabi Etxebarrieta for a routine traffic violation. Etxebarrieta’s subsequent killing by officers prompted ETA to assassinate Melitón Manzanas González, a former Nazi Gestapo associate and police chief of San Sebastián, known for brutal treatment of Basque prisoners. Since 1968, ETA has been blamed for killing 829 persons, wounding thousands more in bombings and shootings, and committing scores of kidnappings. It counters with claims that “state violence” claimed at least 474 lives in Basque Country between 1960 and 2010, and a “dirty war” waged by paramilitary “Antiterrorist Liberation Groups” claimed 27 between 1983 and 1987. During Spain’s transition to democracy, after 1975, ETA split into rival factions: ETA political-military and ETA military, both refusing amnesty offers while pursuing guerrilla warfare. Successive ceasefires in 1989, 1996, 1998, and 2006 did not stem the violence, nor did the incarceration of 800 ETA members, with extrajudicial slayings of various others. A final ceasefire, declared on September 5, 2010, has proved more effective, buttressed on October 20, 2011, by a declaration that the ETA had undertaken a “definitive cessation of its armed activity.” A successor organization—Irrintzi, founded in 2006—continues bombings aimed at entrepreneurs “intruding” on Basque territory.

Workers, in February 1978. Between Beñarán’s murder and its dissolution in 1981, the Batallón Vasco Español killed four other ETA members, six members of Herri Batasuna (“Unity of the People”), two members of GRAPO (the First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups), one member of Euskadiko Ezkerra (“Basque Country Left”), and four victims of unknown political affiliation. Further Reading Anderson, Wayne. The ETA: Spain’s Basque Terrorists. New York: Rosen Publishing, 2003. Aretxaqa, Begoña. States of Terror. Reno, NV: Center for Basque Studies, 2005.

41

42

B E N T, C H A R L E S

Mickolus, Edward, and Susan Simmons. The Terrorist List. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011. Woodworth, Paddy. Dirty Wars, Clean Hands: The ETA, the GAL, and Spanish Democracy. Cork: Cork University Press, 2001. Zulaika, Joseba. Terrorism: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

BENT, CHARLES (1799–1847) On January 19, 1847, Mexicans and Pueblo Indians, who were unhappy with the U.S. seizure of New Mexico five months earlier, rose in revolt against U.S. authorities at Don Fernando de Taos (present-day Taos). Mexican activist Jose Pablo Montoya and Pueblo tribesman Tomás Romero led a raiding party to the home of Governor Charles Bent, where they shot Bent with arrows, then scalped him in front of his wife and children. Bent survived those wounds, escaping with his family and several friends, digging through the adobe wall of their house to another next door. The raiders belatedly noticed Bent’s escape and gave chase, finally killing him, but left the other witnesses unharmed. Elsewhere in Taos, rebels killed and scalped sheriff Stephen Lee, probate Judge Cornelio Vigil, and circuit attorney J. W. Leal. Two other massacres, at Arroyo Hondo and Mora on January 20, claimed 15 more American lives. A West Virginia native, born in Charleston on November 11, 1799, Charles Bent attended the United States Military Academy at West Point and served in the army until 1828, when he joined his younger brother to lead a series of mercantile wagon trains over the Santa Fe Trail. In 1832, he joined Missouri trader Ceran St. Vrain to form the Bent & St. Vrain Company, building a series of fortified trading posts between St. Louis and Taos. In 1835, Bent married Taos native Maria Ignacia Jaramilla, whose younger sister later married famous frontier scout Christopher “Kit” Carson. Bent’s commercial empire was well established by April 1846, when war erupted between Mexico and the United States. Governor Manuel Armijo surrendered New Mexico on August 14, following a week-long siege of Santa Fe in which no shots were fired. U.S. commander Stephen Watts Kearny named Bent as first governor of New Mexico Territory, while leaving Colonel Sterling Price in charge of occupying troops. Predictably, in Bent’s words, those troops “undertook to act like conquerors.” Bent wrote to Price’s superior, Colonel Alexander Doniphan, imploring that he interpose [his] authority to compel the soldiers to respect the rights of the inhabitants. These outrages are becoming so frequent that I apprehend serious consequences must result sooner or later if measures are not taken to prevent them.” Doniphan’s inaction paved the way for armed revolt in January 1847. After the massacres of January 19–20, Colonel Price led troops to suppress the rebellion, defeating insurgent forces at Santa Cruz on January 24, at

BHUTTO, BENAZIR

Embudo Pass on January 29, and at Taos on February 3–5, 1847. Rebels repulsed a second force under Captain Israel Hendley at Mora, on January 24, but were routed by Captain Jesse Morin’s troops on February 1. Pueblo rebel leader Tomás Romero was captured and jailed at Taos, shot dead in his cell by Private John Fitzgerald on February 8 without the formality of trial. A subsequent court-martial convicted Jose Montoya and 14 other rebels on charges of murder and treason against the territorial government. Montoya and five more rebels were hanged on April 9, 1847, with the remainder executed two weeks later. Meanwhile, combat between insurgents and occupying troops continued at Red River Canyon (May 26–27), Las Vegas ( July 6), and Cienega Creek ( July 9). Further Reading Crutchfield, James. Tragedy at Taos: The Revolt of 1847. Dallas: Republic of Texas Press, 1995. Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne, and Simon Ortiz. Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007. Durand, John. The Taos Massacres. Elkhorn, WI: Puzzlebox Press, 2004. Flint, F. Harlan. Hispano Homesteaders, The Last New Mexico Pioneers, 1850–1910. Santa Fe, NM: Sunstone Press, 2012. Sides, Hampton. Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West. New York: Anchor Books, 2006.

BHUTTO, BENAZIR (1953–2007) On December 27, 2007, two-time Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto attended a campaign rally for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) at Liaquat National Bagh (park) in Rawalpindi. Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan had been assassinated at the same location 56 years earlier, but Bhutto disregarded death threats in her preparations for the January 2008 parliamentary elections. Rising through the sunroof of her bulletproof limousine, she was waving to the crowd when gunfire and explosions erupted, wounding Bhutto and killing 24 bystanders. Bhutto’s driver rushed her to Rawalpindi General Hospital, where she entered surgery at 5:35 P.M. and was pronounced dead at 6:16 P.M. The cause of death remained in question until February 2008, when Scotland Yard investigators blamed blunt force trauma to the skull, as a result of the explosions. Benazir Bhutto seemed destined for politics. The daughter of former prime minister and PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, born in Karachi on June 21, 1953, she was educated in Karachi until age 16, then studied at Radcliffe College and Harvard University in the United States (1969–1973), then at Oxford in England (1973–1977). A military coup deposed her father in July 1977; he was hanged on April 4, 1979, on charges of conspiring to kill a rival politician’s father. Many Pakistanis thought that charge was fabricated by Zulfikar Bhutto’s successor, military dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Benazir Bhutto,

43

44

B H U T T O, B E N A Z I R

her mother, and her younger brother spent 18 months under house arrest; Benazir was then moved to solitary confinement at Sukkur after the PPP swept local elections in 1981. Released that December, she spent another 26 months confined at home before international pressure on General Zia-ul-Haq forced him to let her leave the country. In July 1985, while she resided in London, her brother was poisoned in France. That crime remains officially unsolved. General Zia-ul-Haq died in a plane crash on August 17, 1988, clearing the way for Bhutto’s election as prime minister. She took office on December 2, leading a coalition of Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, killed the center–left PPP and liberal in an ambush in 2007. (AFP/Getty Images) Muttahida Qaumi Movement that faced constant opposition from conservative president Ghulam Ishaq Khan. In 1989, Khan and army chief of staff General Mirza Aslam Beg collaborated on “Operation Midnight Jackal,” a covert intelligence campaign to smear Bhutto and the PPP with fabricated charges of corruption. Reporters exposed that plot, which resulted in several army officers being sent to prison, but President Khan persevered, vetoing each of Bhutto’s progressive efforts, finally invoking a rarely used constitutional amendment to dismiss her in December 1990. For the next three years, Bhutto served as opposition leader in Pakistan’s parliament, winning elections to her second term as prime minister, in April 1993. She survived an abortive military coup d’état in 1995, but was dismissed a second time in November 1996, this time by President Farooq Leghari, on fresh charges of corruption. Two months before her dismissal, police had killed Bhutto’s younger brother, Murtaza, in Karachi. Fearing for her life, Bhutto moved to Dubai in in 1998 and lived in self-imposed exile until October 2007, when military president General Pervez Musharraf dismissed outstanding criminal charges. Suicide bombers attempted to kill Bhutto at Jinnah International Airport on October 18, but she was unharmed by the devastating blasts

B I N L A D E N , O S A M A B I N M O H A M M E D B I N AWA D

that killed 136 other victims and wounded 450. Two weeks later, on November 3, President Pervez Musharraf declared a nationwide state of emergency, briefly placing Bhutto under house arrest until public outrage forced her release. Bhutto proceeded with her plan to win a third term as prime minister, aborted by the suicide attack that claimed her life. Al-Qaeda field commander Saeed al-Masri claimed responsibility for Bhutto’s assassination, whereas the Pakistani government spokesmen named Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud as the attack’s planner. Bhutto’s family and the PPP disputed both claims, blaming opponents in the military–intelligence community. A U.S. drone aircraft killed Mehsud at the home of his second wife’s father, on August 5, 2009, and another killed al-Masri with his wife and three children on May 21, 2010. An antiterrorism court in Rawalpindi ordered ex-president Musharraf’s arrest on February 12, 2011, charging him with complicity in Bhutto’s assassination, and the Sindh High Court charged him with treason on March 8, 2011. At the time of this writing, he remains in London, battling extradition. Further Reading Bhatia, Shyam. Goodbye Shahzadi: A Political Biography of Benazir Bhutto. New Delhi: Lotus Roli Books, 2008. Bhutto, Fatima. Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter’s Memoir. New York: Nation Books, 2010. Hughes, Libby. Benazir Bhutto: From Prison to Prime Minister. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2000. Hussain, Zahid. Frontline Pakistan: The Path to Catastrophe and the Killing of Benazir Bhutto. London: I.B. Tauris, 2008. United Nations Security Council. Report of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry into the Facts and Circumstances of the Assassination of Former Pakistani Prime Minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: United Nations Publications, 2009.

BIN LADEN, OSAMA BIN MOHAMMED BIN AWAD (1957–2011) On May 2, 2011, members of Seal Team Six—formally designated the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group—executed “Operation Neptune Spear” by storming a fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The raiders killed five persons, four men and one woman, while suffering no injuries themselves. Their primary target, fugitive terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, was identified via “DNA testing and other means,” before his corpse was extracted and buried at sea on May 3, to deprive supporters of a physical rallying point. Followers of bin Laden acknowledged his death on May 6 and vowed retaliation. A Saudi native, born to an affluent family in Riyadh on March 10, 1957, Osama bin Laden married the first of five wives at age 17, ultimately siring

45

46

B I N L A D E N , O S A M A B I N M O H A M M E D B I N AWA D

26 children. By the time of his first marriage, bin Laden’s father and a halfbrother were partners with future U.S. president George H. W. Bush in the Carlyle Group, a U.S.-based global asset management firm. In 1979, bin Laden received a degree in civil engineering from King Abdulaziz University, then moved to Pakistan, joining the CIA-assisted mujahideen resistance to Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. In August 1988, six months before the Soviet withdrawal, bin Laden organized al-Qaeda (“The Base,” in Arabic) “to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious.” In August 1990, following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, bin Laden offered to defend Saudi Arabia in the event of an attack. FBI agents raided the New Jersey home of al-Qaeda associate El Sayyid Nosair two months later, discovering plans to bomb Manhattan skyscrapers. Nosair subsequently confessed his involvement in the November 7, 1990, murder of controversial rabbi Meyer Kahane. Bin Laden, meanwhile, broke with the Saudi government over its U.S. ties and was banished to Sudan in 1992, and stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994. In 1995, he joined in an abortive plot to kill Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. May 1996 found bin Laden back in Afghanistan, where he issued a declaration of war against the United States three months later, declaring that “the evils of the Middle East arose from America’s attempt to take over the region and from its support for Israel. Saudi Arabia had been turned into an American colony.” With Taliban support, he effectively seized control of Ariana Afghan Airlines, using it to shuttle terrorists around the world. Mayhem ensued, beginning with al-Qaeda’s bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Yemen, killing two persons on December 29, 1992. Principals in the February 1993 World Trade Centers’ bombing were linked to al-Qaeda, though the attack was not an official bin Laden project. Bin Laden financed the Luxor massacre of November 17, 1997, which killed 62 civilians at an Egyptian archaeological site, and coordinated the bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 223 persons and wounding more than 4,000. In October 2000, al-Qaeda suicide bombers struck the destroyer USS Cole in Aden, killing 17 seamen and injuring 39. Investigation of the 1998 embassy bombings placed bin Laden on the FBI’s “most wanted” list, with a $6 million reward for information leading to his capture (subsequently increased to $25 million). On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda members executed the worst terrorist strikes in U.S. history, hijacking four airliners and using them as vehicles for suicide attacks. Targets included New York’s World Trade Centers, the Pentagon, and the White House, but passengers aboard the plane en route to strike the presidential residence overpowered their kidnappers, crashing the jet into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The day’s grim toll included 2,996 dead, with more than 6,000 injured. On the same day, bin Laden’s half-brother Shafig

B I N L A D E N , O S A M A B I N M O H A M M E D B I N AWA D

was feted as guest of honor by the Carlyle Group, at Washington’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, with ex-president George H. W. Bush in attendance. Eight days later, President George W. Bush permitted Shafig bin Laden and 12 relatives to leave the United States for Saudi Arabia, without being questioned by FBI agents. On September 26, President Bush declared his intent to “smoke out” bin Laden at any cost, but he changed his stance on March 13, 2002, telling reporters, “I truly am not that concerned about him.” Bin Laden eluded capture throughout the remainder of Bush’s White House tenure, while al-Qaeda continued its campaign of terror. On October 12, 2002, members bombed a tourist resort on Bali, killing 202 people and wounding 240. Four truck bombs, detonated in Istanbul on November 15 and 20, 2003, killed 57 and injured 700. The February 27, 2004, bombing of SuperFerry 14 killed 116 persons in Manila Bay. On March 11, 2004—911 days after “9/11”—bombs aboard a Spanish commuter train killed 191 people and wounded 1,800. Al-Qaeda hostage-takers in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, killed 22 captives and injured 25 more on May 29–30, 2004. A suicide bombing at the Hayatt Amman Hotel killed 60 and wounded hundreds on November 9, 2005. Two bombings in Algiers killed 33 on April 11, 2007. Yet another blast, at the Danish embassy in Pakistan, killed six on June 2, 2008. Throughout this period, al-Qaeda also claimed responsibility for many bombings in U.S.occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. Following bin Laden’s death, Pakistan’s Foreign Office “categorically denied” reports that the government had sheltered bin Laden or had any foreknowledge of the assault that killed him. Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, promised a “full inquiry” while admitting that “obviously bin Laden did have a support system; the issue is, was that support system within the government and the state of Pakistan or within the society of Pakistan?” Federal prosecutors dismissed all outstanding charges against the late terrorist leader on June 15, 2011. Further Reading Bergen, Peter. Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden—From 9/11 to Abbottabad. New York: Crown Publishers, 2012. Bowden, Mark. The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2012. Furnish, Timothy. Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, Their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2005. Owen, Mark. No Easy Day: The First-hand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden. New York: Dutton Adult, 2012. Pfarrer, Chuck. SEAL Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama bin Laden. New York: St. Martin’s 2011. Scheuer, Michael. Osama bin Laden. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

47

48

BIRENDRA BIR BIKRAM SHAH DEV

BIRENDRA BIR BIKRAM SHAH DEV (1945–2001) On June 1, 2001, Prince Dipendra, heir presumptive to Nepal’s throne, drank heavily during a banquet at the Narayanhity Palace Museum in Kathmandu. Following an incident of drunken “misbehavior” with a dinner guest, King Birendra ordered his son out from the room, escorted by his younger brother Prince Nirajan and a cousin, Prince Paras. An hour later, Dipendra returned to the dining room with two automatic weapons and sprayed the room with gunfire, killing his father and mother (Queen Aishwarya), brother Nirajan and a sister, two uncles, an aunt, and a female cousin of his father. Four other members of the family were wounded, but survived. Finally, Dipendra shot himself in the head and fell comatose. Although officially proclaimed Nepal’s new king, Dipendra died on June 4 without regaining consciousness. King Birendra was the son of King Mahendra, and was born on December 28, 1945, at the palace where he later died. He succeeded his father at age 26, when Mahendra died on January 31, 1972. Before ascending to the throne, he studied at St. Joseph’s College in Darjeeling, India, at England’s Eton College, at the University of Tokyo, and at Harvard University. He married a daughter of the aristocratic Rana family, Aishwarya Rajyalaxmi Devi Rana, in February 1970, in a lavish ceremony costing $9.5 million. Their union produced three children, none of whom survived the palace massacre of June 2001. Birendra’s reign was marred by controversy and violence, including the 1976 arrest of Nepalese Congress Party leaders who opposed him, student revolts in 1979, nationwide civil disobedience in 1985, and strikes and pro-democracy riots in 1990. Despite Birendra’s promulgation of a new constitution in November 1990, political upheavals continued and degenerated into civil war by February 1996. That conflict, between government forces and the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), bent on establishing a “Federal Republic of Nepal,” would continue, claiming an estimated 12,700 lives, until the signing of a comprehensive peace accord in November 2006. Following the royal massacre of June 2001, a surviving witness—Nepalese soldier Lal Bahadur Lamteri—told the newspaper Naya Patrika that Prince Dipendra was actually shot before the other victims, by an unidentified gunman wearing a mask that resembled Dipendra’s face. A two-man investigating committee, consisting Supreme Court chief justice Keshav Prasad Upadhaya and House Speaker Taranath Ranabhat, disputed that claim and confirmed Dipendra’s guilt. Conspiracy theorists noted that the building where the homicides occurred had been demolished, ruling out forensic recreation of events.

B I S H O P, M A U R I C E R U P E R T

Speculation persists as to Dipendra’s motive for the slayings. Drunken anger over being chastised by his father seemed inadequate, and former king Gyanendra—recalled from exile in India to serve as regent while Dipendra lingered in a coma—initially blamed the deaths on “accidental discharge of an automatic weapon.” Later, speculation arose that Dipendra was angry over “a marriage dispute” concerning prospective fiancée Devyani Rana, who fled Nepal after the massacre. Gyanendra succeeded Dipendra for a second term as king, ending with formal abolition of the monarchy on May 28, 2008. Further Reading Gregson, Jonathan. Massacre at the Palace: The Doomed Royal Dynasty of Nepal. New York: Miramax, 2002. Hutchins, Francis. Democratizing Monarch: A Memoir of Nepal’s King Birendra. Gainesville, FL: Vajra Publications, 2007. Willesee, Amy, and Mark Whittaker. Love and Death in Kathmandu: A Strange Tale of Royal Murder. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003.

BISHOP, MAURICE RUPERT (1944–1983) On October 19, 1983, Grenadian deputy prime minister Bernard Coard ordered the arrest of his nominal superior, Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, with most of Bishop’s ministers. Bishop was briefly placed under house arrest, then released when his supporters marched en masse through the capital’s streets. Bishop made his way to the army headquarters at Fort Rupert (now Fort George), apparently intending to reclaim his seat. More troops arrived, directed by Coard, and the resultant fighting claimed numerous lives. Bishop was captured during the battle and executed with seven others. His body has never been found. Born in Aruba on May 29, 1944, Bishop moved to Grenada with his parents as an infant. After high school he studied at the London School of Economics, then earned a law degree from the University of London. Bishop remained in England for three years of private practice, cofounding a legal aid clinic that assisted West Indians immigrants. He returned to Grenada in 1973 and soon emerged as leader of the Marxist New Jewel Movement (NJM; Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation). He won election to parliament and worked in opposition to Prime Minister Eric Gairy, whose paramilitary “Mongoose Gang” retaliated by beating Bishop in November 1973. A month later, Britain announced that Grenada would be independent— under Gairy’s leadership—by February 1974. NJM members demonstrated on January 22, and police fired on the crowd, killing Bishop’s father. Opposition to Gairy continued, increasing as he sought advice on governance from

49

50

B I S H O P, M A U R I C E R U P E R T

Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and spoke publicly on paranormal subjects, declaring 1978 “The Year of the UFO.” Bishop and the NJM deposed Gairy on March 13, 1979, suspending Grenada’s constitution and ruling by decree in the name of a People’s Revolutionary Government, inviting Cuban teachers, technicians, and physicians to help improve the country’s standard of living. Even then, the socialist reforms were not enough for hard-line Marxists in the NJM, who rallied around Bernard Coard to unseat Bishop in 1983. Following Bishop’s execution, General Hudson Austin of the People’s Revolutionary Army named himself chairman of a military junta. To forestall protests, Austin imposed a four-day “total curfew,” warning that any person found away from home without official sanction would be shot on sight. Word soon reached Washington that Cuban soldiers and construction workers were building a new 10,000-foot landing strip, presumably for use by military aircraft. On October 23, President Ronald Reagan initiated “Operation Urgent Fury,” invading Grenada with 7,300 U.S. troops and 353 supporting forces from various Caribbean nations. At a reported cost of 113 dead and 533 wounded, invaders toppled the junta—and incidentally rescued a number of U.S. medical students from St. George’s University. The United Nations General Assembly, by a vote of 108 to 9, condemned the invasion as “a flagrant violation of international law.” In the wake of that invasion, Hudson Austin, Bernard Coard, his wife Phyllis, and various others were arrested on charges of murdering Bishop. At trial in 1986, Austin, Coard, and six others were sentenced to death, but their penalty was later commuted to life imprisonment. In February 2007, London’s Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ordered resentencing of the defendants, and in June their prison terms were reduced to 30 years. Austin and two others were released on December 18, 2008. Bernard Coard was the last to leave prison, on September 5, 2009. Further Reading Adkin, Mark. Urgent Fury: The Battle for Grenada. Philadelphia: Trans-Atlantic Publications, 1989. Brizan, George. Grenada: Island of Conflict. New York: Macmillan Caribbean, 1998. Gilmore, William. The Grenada Intervention: Analysis and Documentation. New York: Facts on File, 1984. Marcus, Bruce, and Michael Taber. Maurice Bishop Speaks: The Grenada Revolution and Its Overthrow 1979–83. Atlanta: Pathfinder Press, 1983. Sandford, Gregory, and Richard Vigilante. Grenada: The Untold Story. Toronto: Madison Books, 1984. Seaga, Edward. The Grenada Intervention: The Inside Story. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies, 2009.

B O B R I K O V, N I K O L AY I VA N O V I C H

BOBRIKOV, NIKOLAY IVANOVICH (1839–1904) Nikolay Bobrikov, governor general of Finland under Russia’s tsar Nicholas II, was immensely unpopular with the subjects he had ruled since August 1898. Each year brought new decrees imposing Russian rules, language, and customs on the Finns. On June 16, 1904, Finnish nobleman and nationalist Eugen Schauman accosted Bobrikov at Helsinki’s Government Palace. Drawing a revolver, he fired three hand-loaded explosive bullets at Bobrikov, then pumped two rounds into his own chest. Whereas Schauman died instantly, Bobrikov nearly escaped. Two of the homemade slugs ricocheted from medals pinned to his coat, and the third glanced off his belt buckle—then ripped into his stomach. Bobrikov died that night, after surgery failed to repair his wound. An aristocratic native of St. Petersburg, born on January 27, 1839, Bobrikov joined the Russian army as an officer in 1858, at age 19. He served in the Kazan military district upon its creation in August 1864, then as divisional chief of staff in Veliky Novgorod, where he rose to a colonel’s rank by 1869. The following year saw him transferred to St. Petersburg for service with the tsar’s Imperial Guard. There, he ingratiated himself with members of the royal court and was promoted to major general by Alexander III in 1878. Twenty years later, Nicholas II dispatched him to rule the Grand Duchy of Finland, occupied since March 1809 but still regarded as a potential threat to Russia. Finland’s förtrycksperioderna (“years of oppression”) began in earnest with the February Manifesto of 1899, mandating use of Russian currency and stamps, imposing press censorship, and establishing Russian Orthodoxy as Finland’s state religion. The Language Manifesto of 1900 made Russian the administrative language of Finland, although the grand duchy contained only 8,000 Russians (in a population of 2.7 million). A conscription statute passed in July 1901 subjugated Finnish military force to the Imperial Russian Army. In April 1903, Nicholas granted Bobrikov dictatorial powers, including the authority to dismiss Finnish government officials and abolish newspapers. Russia responded to Bobrikov’s assassination with more stringent rules and a purge of Finnish politicians who opposed Russification, but resistance continued and achieved a de facto reversal of the 1901 conscription law. Russia’s revolution of 1905 temporarily halted Russification efforts, although the campaign resumed in 1908 and continued until the October Revolution of 1917. Finland’s parliament declared independence on November 15, sparking a civil war between “Whites” (middle- and upper-class Finns, with farmers who dominated two-thirds of the land) and “Reds” (socialist–communist urban laborers and landless peasants). The Whites triumphed in May 1918, with an estimated loss of 37,000 lives. Eugen Schauman left a letter addressed to Tsar Nicholas, justifying Bobrikov’s murder proclaiming that he had acted alone. Russian authorities buried him in an unmarked Helsinki grave, but later exhumed him for burial with

51

52

BOLLES, DON

other family members at Porvoo, as a means of easing political tension. A large monument marks his grave today, and a plaque at the assassination site reads Se Pro Patria Dedit: “He gave himself for his country.” A 2004 television program on “Great Finns” ranked Schauman 34th among 100 national heroes. Further Reading Deriabin, Peter. Watchdogs of Terror: Russian Bodyguards from the Tsars to the Commissars. Westport, CT: Arlington House, 1984. Kirby, David. A Concise History of Finland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Kirby, David. Finland and Russia, 1808–1920: From Autonomy to Independence. New York: Macmillan, 1975.

BOLLES, DON (1928–1976) On June 2, 1976, reporter Don Bolles left a note on his desk at the Arizona Republic office in Phoenix, declaring his plan to meet an informant for lunch and return by 1:30 P.M. He drove to the Hotel Clarendon, but his informant failed to appear. Following a two-minute phone conversation in the hotel’s lobby, Bolles returned to his car parked outside. As he started the car, a bomb exploded underneath the driver’s seat. Bystanders rushing to aid Bolles recalled his final words before he lapsed into unconsciousness: “They finally got me. The Mafia. Emprise. Find John.” Bolles reached St. Joseph’s Hospital alive, where surgeons amputated both legs and one arm, but their efforts were in vain. He died without regaining consciousness, on June 13. Born in Teaneck, New Jersey, on July 10, 1928, Don Bolles was a third-generation journalist. He graduated from Wisconsin’s Beloit College beInvestigative reporter Don Bolles, victim of a 1976 fore joining the U.S. Army and serving in the Korean War. underworld car-bombing. (AP Photo)

BOLLES, DON

Back in civilian life, he joined the Associated Press, working in New York, New Jersey, and Kentucky before Republic editor Eugene Pulliam hired him in 1962. From sports reporting, Bolles quickly advanced to the investigative beat, probing Mafia influence on Arizona dog and horse racing, revealing bribery and kickbacks on the state tax and corporation commissions, exposing real-estate swindles, and spotlighting a conflict-of-interest scandal involving state legislators. In 1974, he was honored as Arizona Press Club Newsman of the Year. But by the next year, colleagues noted signs of disillusionment and burnout. Bolles requested and received a transfer from the crime beat to city government and the state legislature. It should have been less hazardous, but the fatal bombing and Bolles’s final words suggested he was still probing organized crime. Although the motive for his death remains obscure, early suspicion focused on Kemper Marley, Arizona’s “godfather of land fraud” and a longtime partner in the liquor trade with John Hensley, father-in-law of Senator John McCain. Marley was never charged, however, though police did net a clutch of suspects. On the day Bolles died, Phoenix detectives arrested John Harvey Adamson, a racing-dog owner and the informant who stood Bolles up on June 2. On January 15, 1977, Adamson confessed planting a remote-control bomb in Bolles’s car, on orders from contractor Max Dunlap, assisted by plumber James Robison. Adamson agreed to provide evidence on behalf of the state in exchange for a 20-year sentence, providing testimony that convicted Dunlap and Robison of murder on November 6, 1977. Both men were sentenced to death in January 1978, but marathon appeals ensued. Arizona’s Supreme Court ordered a new trial in February 1980, but Adamson balked at testifying a second time. Murder charges against both defendants were dismissed in June 1980, and authorities revoked Adamson’s plea bargain and charged him with first-degree murder. Convicted in October 1980 and sentenced to death the following month, Adamson saw his sentence reduced to life imprisonment on appeal in May 1986 and again (after its reinstatement) in December 1988. Meanwhile, prosecutors refiled murder charges against Robison in November 1989, and against Dunlap in December 1990. They were granted separate trials, with Dunlap convicted in April 1993 (receiving life with no parole for 25 years), and jurors acquitted Robison in December 1993. On cross-examination at his trial, Robison admitted asking a fellow inmate to kill Adamson, a separate crime that earned him five years in federal prison following a July 1995 guilty plea. John Adamson left prison on August 12, 1996, and entered the federal Witness Protection Program, then emerged from hiding in the early 21st century. Robison was paroled in 1998, at age 76. Dunlap died in prison on July 21, 2009. No suspects have been positively named to date as instigators of the bombing.

53

54

B O R G I A , G I O VA N N I

EMPRISE CORPORATION The company named as such by Don Bolles in his dying remarks was founded in Buffalo, New York, in 1915. Its creators—brothers Charles, Louis, and Marvin Jacobs—operated concession stands in various sporting venues and theaters, expanding from the 1920s through the 1950s with financial support that included interest-free loans from recognized Mafia bosses in Cleveland and Detroit. Emprise, in return, occasionally granted loans to mobsters, including Las Vegas “godfather” Moe Dalitz. Business flourished under the firm’s original name, and later as Sportservice. In 1939, the company acquired its first racetrack, reborn in 1980 as Delaware North Companies Gaming & Entertainment. In 1987, Delaware North acquired Sky Chefs, gaining a foothold in airports nationwide. Six years later, it won the contract to provide visitor services in Yosemite National Park. In 1995, the company assumed management of Florida’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Delaware North entered the European market in 2006, with a contract for London’s Emirates Stadium, followed by another for Wembley Stadium in 2007. By 2010, the company owned several casinos and had assumed management of RMS Queen Mary, permanently docked at Long Beach, California. No link between the firm and the assassination of Don Bolles has been established.

Further Reading Headly, Lake. Loud and Clear: The Don Bolles Murder Case. New York: Henry Holt, 1990. Kaiser, Robert Blair. Desert Injustice. n.p. Amazon Digital Services, 2011. Tallberg, Martin. Don Bolles: An Investigation into His Murder. New York: Popular Library, 1977. Wendland, Michael. The Arizona Project: How a Team of Investigative Reporters Got Revenge on Deadline. Riverside, NJ: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1977.

BORGIA, GIOVANNI (1476–1497) On June 14, 1497, Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandía (in eastern Spain) dined in Rome with his mother, Vannozza dei Cattanei, and his brother Cesare. He arrived for dinner with an unidentified masked man, who had been seen with Giovanni frequently in recent weeks. At the meal’s conclusion, Giovanni and Cesare left together, with the masked stranger riding double on Giovanni’s horse. They subsequently separated, Giovanni ignoring his brother’s warning about the nocturnal dangers of Rome, riding off with his mysterious companion. When he

B O R G I A , G I O VA N N I

failed to reappear next day, a search began and authorities found a Tiber boatman who had seen a man leading a horse with an apparent body draped across its saddle. Moments later, after someone said, “My lord,” there came a splash. Officers dragged the river and retrieved Borgia’s body, torn by nine stab wounds, with 30 gold ducats still in his purse. Giovanni Borgia—also known as “Juan” or “Joan”—was the son of Pope Alexander VI. Clerical vows of celibacy notwithstanding, Alexander also sired Giovanni’s siblings Cesare, Lucrezia, and Gioffre. Different records cite his year of birth as 1474 and 1476, with most historians today accepting the latter date, which makes Cesare the oldest Borgia son and Giovanni the second of four children. In September 1493, Borgia married Maria Enriquez de Luna, Spanish fiancée of his deceased elder half-brother Pier Luigi de Borgia, 1st Duke of Gandía. In the atmosphere of 15th-century Rome, motives for Borgia’s murder were plentiful. Some observers suspected brother Cesare, Duke of Valentinois, noting that Giovanni’s death cleared the way for Cesare to launch a long-awaited military career in the Italian War of 1499–1504. Others suspected that the murder may have sprung from Giovanni’s dalliance with Sancha of Aragon, illegitimate daughter of King Alfonso II of Naples. Sancha had married the younger Borgia brother Gioffre in 1494, but still enjoyed romantic liaisons with Cesare and Giovanni. Further confusing matters, Sancha’s brother Alfonso married Lucrezia Borgia in 1498 and was murdered in 1500, allegedly on orders from Cesare. By that time, as historian Barbara Tuchman observed, “In the bubbling stew of Rome’s rumors, no depravity appeared beyond the scope of the Borgias.” Even Pope Alexander was not immune from suspicion: humorist Jacopo Sannazaro dubbed him a “fisher of men,” referring to Giovanni’s discovery in the Tiber. Although no sure verdict is possible in Giovanni’s slaying, the House of Borgia is indelibly linked to murder. Historian Johann Burchard (ca. 1450–1506) wrote of Cesare: “One day he went so far as to have the square of St. Peter enclosed by a palisade, into which he ordered some prisoners—men, women and children—to be brought. He then had them bound, hand and foot, and being armed and mounted on a fiery charger, commenced a horrible attack upon them. Some he shot, and others he cut down with his sword, trampling them under his horse’s feet. In less than half-an-hour, he wheeled around alone in a puddle of blood, among the dead bodies of his victims, while his Holiness and Madam Lucrezia, from a balcony, enjoyed the sight of that horrid scene.” Like other famous assassination victims, Giovanni Borgia survives in popular fiction. His murder is a central feature of Mario Puzo’s novel The Family (2001), and is portrayed in various films and television series: the 2010 animated short film Assassin’s Creed: Ascendance; the French/German series Borgia (2011); and the second season of Showtime’s series The Borgias (2012).

55

56

B O R S E L L I N O, PAO L O

Further Reading Cloulas, Ivan. The Borgias. Danbury, CT: Franklin Watts, 1989. Hibbert, Christopher. The Borgias and Their Enemies: 1431–1519. New York: Mariner Books, 2009. Johnson, Marion. The Borgias. New York: Penguin, 2002. Mallett, Michael. The Borgias: The Rise and Fall of the Most Infamous Family in History. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2005.

BORSELLINO, PAOLO (1940–1992) On July 19, 1992, anti-Mafia magistrate Paolo Borsellino prepared for a Sunday visit to his mother in Palermo, Sicily. Bearing in mind the May 23 murder of his predecessor, Giovanni Falcone, Borsellino traveled with six heavily armed policemen as his bodyguards. They could not help this day, however, as a powerful remote-control car bomb exploded along Borsellino’s route of travel, demolishing his vehicle and instantly killing all aboard. Slain with Borsellino in the blast were Officers Agostino Catalano, Walter Cosina, Emanuela Loi, Vincenzo Li Muli, and Claudio Traina. Paolo Borsellino was born to middle-class parents in the Kalsa district of Palermo, on January 19, 1940. He earned a law degree with honors from the University of Palermo in 1962, and was admitted to the bar a year later. After practicing in several Sicilian cities, he returned to Palermo in 1975 and joined Magistrate Rocco Chinnici in his fight against the Mafia. By May 1980, when mafiosi murdered colleague Emanuele Basile in Monreale, Borsellino had convicted six syndicate members. Thereafter, Borsellino received round-the-clock protection from the Carabinieri, Italy’s paramilitary national police. As a member of Palermo’s Antimafia Pool, working daily with Magistrates Chinnici, Giovanni Falcone, Giuseppe Di Lello, and Leonardo Guarnotta, Borsellino conducted extensive research into the Mafia’s history and organizaItalian anti-Mafia judge Paolo Borsellino, was killed tional structure, recruiting informants who would break the oath by a Mafia car bomb in Palermo. (Sygma/Corbis)

B O U D I A F, M O H A M E D

of silence (omertà) in exchange for leniency at trial. Mafiosi killed Rocco Chinnici in July 1983, followed by Palermo chief of police Antonino Cassarà in August 1985, ex-mayor Giuseppe Insalaco in January 1988, Magistrate Rosario Livatino in September 1990, Supreme Court prosecutor Antonio Scopelliti in August 1991, and Salvo Lima, another ex-mayor, in March 1992. On May 21, 1992, a half-ton car bomb killed Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three bodyguards on the highway between Palermon International Airport and the city’s center. Borsellino, serving since 1986 as chief prosecutor of Marsala, knew that he was on the Mafia’s hit list. In his last interview, taped on the day of Falcone’s assassination, Borsellino announced plans to probe links between the Mafia wealthy Italian businessmen such as future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Curiously, that interview—taped by French journalists—did not air in Italy until 2000, with 20 minutes cut from its original 50-minute length. Authorities named Mafia boss Salvatore “Totò” Riina, alias “The Beast,” as the mastermind of the Falcone and Borsellino murders. He remained at large, in hiding, until Carabinieri officers surprised him at traffic light in Palermo, on January 15, 1993. Police credited informer Baldassare Di Maggio, Riina’s former chauffeur, with directing them to Riina, a revelation that led to the murders of several Di Maggio relatives. At his first trial, in October 1993, Riina was convicted of ordering hits on brothers Pietro and Vincenzo Puccio, resulting in a life sentence. In 1998, he was convicted of Salvo Lima’s murder. Meanwhile, in 1996, Giovanni Brusca—named as the hit man who planted the Falcone bomb—was captured and turned informer. His testimony added further life terms to Riina’s slate, for ordering the murders of Falcone and Borsellino. Palermo International Airport was subsequently renamed Falcone–Borsellino Airport, featuring a memorial to the slain magistrates by sculptor Tommaso Geraci. Borsellino’s sister Rita ran for president in the Sicilian regional election of 2006, but lost to incumbent Salvatore “Totò” Cuffaro—who was convicted of collaboration with the Mafia in January 2008, receiving a five-year sentence. Further Reading Dickie, John. Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Maran, A.G.D. Mafia: Inside the Dark Heart. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2010. Seindal, René. Mafia: Money and Politics in Sicily 1950–1997. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1998. Stille, Alexander. Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic. New York: Vintage, 1996.

BOUDIAF, MOHAMED (1919–1992) On June 29, 1992, Mohamed Boudiaf—seventh president of Algeria—left the nation’s capital for the first time since his January inauguration, to speak

57

58

B O U D I A F, M O H A M E D

at the opening of a cultural center in Annaba. As he delivered that televised address, one of his bodyguards, Lieutenant Lembarek Boumaârafi, drew a pistol and shot Boudiaf in the head at close range, killing him instantly. Boumaârafi escaped in the resulting chaos, but was captured several hours later, telling police, “I killed Boudiaf knowing of his heroic past and that he was a good man. But he didn’t do enough against the mafia. And he opposed the choice of the people. I belong to no political party but I belong to the Islamic movement.” Mohamed Boudiaf was born June 23, 1919, in Ouled Madhi, Algeria, to a former noble family that lost its status under French colonial rule. He suffered from tuberculosis as a child and quit school early, but recovered strength enough to join the nationalist Algerian People’s Party (APP) and its covert paramilitary branch, the Special Organization. French authorities failed to arrest him, but sentenced him in absentia to a 10-year prison term for his guerrilla activities in Sétif Province. Boudiaf subsequently left the APP to join the rival Revolutionary Committee of Unity and Action, surviving an assassination attempt by his former comrades that left him gravely wounded in Algiers. During the Algerian War of Independence, Boudiaf emerged as a leader of the National Liberation Front (NLF). Arrested after an airline hijacking in October 1956, he was imprisoned in France and remained in custody for a time after Algeria won its freedom in 1962. In his absence, former ally Ahmed Ben Bella gathered military support and installed himself as Algeria’s first president in a one-party system. Operating from Morocco, Boudiaf founded an opposition movement, the Party of Socialist Revolution, which opposed Ben Bella’s regime and that of his successors, Colonels Houari Boumediene and Chadli Bendjedid. Civil war erupted in December 1991, after the ruling NLF party canceled elections in the President Mohamed Boudiaf of Algeria, shot while face of growing strength from delivering a televised speech. (AFP/Getty Images) the Islamic Salvation Front (ISF),

BUBACK, SIEGFRIED

formed in 1988. In January 1992, Algeria’s military junta invited Boudiaf to return from exile, accepting leadership of a new High Council of State, a figurehead group hastily created to defuse popular opposition. Boudiaf accepted the post, then surprised his junta sponsors by calling for substantive reform, with an end to military rule. The civil war continued, and although Boudiaf was presented as a victim of Muslim violence, his widow and other observers had doubts. Rumors spread that Boudiaf had tried to open dialogue between the government and ISF, while launching an investigation into state corruption. That campaign indicted retired Major General Mustapha Beloucif for embezzling $6.6 million. The lead investigator in that effort was murdered several days before Boudiaf’s assassination. Authorities clung to their portrayal of Lembarek Boumaârafi as a crazed lone assassin. Convicted of murder and sentenced to death on June 3, 1995, Boumaârafi lost his appeal before Algeria’s Supreme Court in March 1997. Thus far, no report of his execution has surfaced. Mohamed Boudiaf is venerated as a martyr in Algeria today, with the country’s largest airport named in his honor. Further Reading Burgat, Francois. Face to Face with Political Islam. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005. Roberts, Hugh. The Battlefield: Algeria 1988–2002, Studies in a Broken Polity. London: Verso, 2003. Stone, Martin. The Agony of Algeria. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Stora, Benjamin. Algeria, 1830–2000: A Short History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. Sueur, James Lee. Between Terror and Democracy: Algeria Since 1959. London: Zed Books, 2010.

BUBACK, SIEGFRIED (1920–1977) On the morning of April 7, 1977, German attorney general Siegfried Buback left his home in Neureut, bound for the Federal Court of Justice, accompanied by judicial officer Georg Wurster. While their car was stopped at a traffic light in Karlsruhe, a motorcycle pulled alongside and its backseat passenger fired 15 bullets from an automatic weapon at close range. Buback and driver Wolfgang Göbel died instantly, and Wurster survived until April 13 at a local hospital. The triple slaying opened the “German Autumn” campaign of the terrorist Red Army Faction (RAF)—also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group (or Gang), after founders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. Siegfried Buback was born in Wilsdruff, Saxony, on January 3, 1920. He studied at the University of Leipzig, and joined the Nazi Party at age 20, supporting Adolf Hitler for the duration of World War II. Held as a prisoner of war from 1945 to 1947, he joined countless other Third Reich loyalists in

59

60

BUBACK, SIEGFRIED

German attorney general Siegfried Buback, shot by the Red Army Faction. (SVEN SIMON/ dpa/Corbis)

returning to public life after “denazification” of West Germany. Appointed to serve as attorney general in 1974, Buback was an ardent prosecutor of the RAF, founded four years earlier and blamed for five murders, with 42 victims wounded in bombings, since October 1971. In the five months after his assassination, RAF guerrillas killed seven more persons, while losing one of their own in a shootout with police at Kerkrade, Holland. Authorities charged and convicted four RAF members—Knut Folkerts, Christian Klar, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, and Günter Sonnenberg—for Buback’s murder, while admitting that the motorcycle’s driver and his gunman-passenger remained at large. In April 2007, paroled RAF survivor Peter-Jürgen Boock contacted Buback’s son, naming the triggerman as Stefan Wisniewski. Another RAF member, Verena Becker, confirmed that identification in an interview with Der Spiegel, prompting Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble to reopen the investigation of Buback’s assassination. Further investigation by Der Spiegel suggested that prosecutors suppressed evidence to protect an RAF informer in 1977, perhaps resulting in wrongful conviction of alleged participants in Buback’s murder.

B U S H , G E O R G E WA L K E R

Prior to Boock’s revelations, Brigitte Mohnhaupt was paroled on March 25, 2007. Christian Klar, eligible for parole in 2009, requested a pardon from President Horst Köhler, supported by Buback’s son on grounds that information from “RAF circles” confirmed Klar’s innocence. Reporters also discovered that RAF member Verena Becker, sentenced to life on six counts of attempted murder in December 1977, had turned informer in prison, telling police in 1990 that Knut Folkerts was in Amsterdam when Buback died. Further exculpatory evidence includes the fact that police found the Buback murder weapon at Verena Becker’s home, together with a screwdriver from the murder cycle’s tool kit, and that one of her hairs was recovered from a helmet worn during the attack. Authorities blamed the RAF for 34 murders between 1971 and the group’s announcement of final dissolution in April 1998. Other prominent victims included Hanns-Martin Schleyer, president of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations, Deutsche Bank chairman Alfred Herrhausen, and Detlev Karsten Rohwedder, manager of Germany’s Treuhandanstalt (Trust Agency). Further Reading Aust, Stefan. Baader-Meinhof: The Inside Story of the R.A.F. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Hanshew, Karrin. Terror and Democracy in West Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Smith, J., and André Moncourt, Daring to Struggle, Failing to Win: The Reed Army Faction’s 1977 Campaign of Desperation. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2008. Varon, Jeremy. Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

BUSH, GEORGE WALKER (1946– )— ATTEMPTED Official reports list three reported attempts on the life of the 43rd president of the United States, George W. Bush. The first occurred on February 7, 2001, less than three weeks after Bush’s inauguration. At 11:30 that morning, Robert W. Pickett—a 47-year-old accountant from Indiana, embroiled in long-running civil litigation with former employers at the Internal Revenue Service—fired several pistol shots toward the White House from a perimeter fence facing the south lawn. Secret Service officers responded to the scene, and one of them shot Pickett in the knee when he refused to drop his weapon. Following surgery, Pickett was charged with discharging a firearm during a crime. He subsequently pled guilty to a reduced local firearms violation, and also pled no contest on a charge of assaulting a federal officer. In July 2001, he received a three-year prison sentence, with an additional three years’ probation, and was

61

62

B U S H , G E O R G E WA L K E R

released from custody on September 19, 2003. Although President Bush was never in actual danger, spokesmen for the U.S. Park Police said that Pickett’s shots would have reached the White House if his view had not been obstructed. A more serious attempt on Bush apparently occurred on September 11, 2001—the day when coordinated terrorist strikes by al-Qaeda claimed 2,996 lives in New York and Pennsylvania. On that day, Bush was in Florida, lodged at Colony Beach and Tennis Resort on Longboat Key, in preparation for a public appearance in Sarasota. While the president went jogging with Secret Service agents, a van occupied by several men of apparent Middle Eastern descent arrived at the lodge, claiming they were scheduled for a “poolside” interview with Bush. No such appointment was registered, and the still-unidentified men were turned away. Authorities speculated that the strangers intended to kill Bush, as a similar party had slain anti-Taliban militia leader Ahmad Shah Massoud in Takhar Province, Afghanistan, only two days earlier. Although nothing was proved—and Secret Service agents failed to detain the men after questioning them—witnesses subsequently claimed sightings of 9/11 skyjacking ringleader Mohamed Atta at the Longboat Key Holiday Inn, near the Colony Beach, on September 7, 2001. That day, coincidentally or otherwise, was the date when White House spokesmen announced Bush’s upcoming visit to Sarasota. The last reported attempt on President Bush occurred in Tbilis, Georgia, on May 10, 2005. Bush was speaking to an audience in Freedom Square, accompanied by his wife and Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, when ethnic Armenian Vladimir Arutyunian tossed a hand grenade toward the podium. The grenade struck a bystander and fell short of its mark, then failed to explode. Although it was live, and Arutyunian had pulled its pin, a handkerchief he wrapped around the grenade to conceal it from view prevented the safety lever’s release to produce detonation. Arutyunian escaped from the scene, but was caught on film by a tourist’s camera and subsequently identified by FBI agents, acting in concert with Georgian authorities. Cornered at his mother’s home on July 20, 2005, Arutyunian engaged in a shootout with police, killing Zurab Kvlividze, chief of the interior ministry’s counterintelligence department, before he was wounded and captured. Arutyunian initially confessed, then refused to speak at his trial, stitching his lips shut on one occasion. On January 11, 2006, he received a life prison term without possibility of parole. George W. Bush was born on July 6, 1946, the grandson of a U.S. senator. His father, George H. W. Bush, served variously in Congress (1967–1971), as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (1971–1973), as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (1976–1977), as vice president (1981–1989), and as president (1989–1993). The younger Bush, commonly known by his middle initial, served as governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000, then won the presidency

B U S H , G E O R G E WA L K E R

in a close and extremely controversial race against incumbent vice president Al Gore. His election—critics say appointment, in effect, by a five-to-four vote of the U.S. Supreme Court—set the stage for eight years marked by the 9/11 attacks, two foreign wars, and a crushing economic recession. High public approval ratings in the wake of September 2001 dissipated over time, leaving “Bush No. 43” one of America’s least popular presidents, both absent and literally unmentioned at his party’s national conventions in 2008 and 2012. Bush’s father was also the target of a reported assassination attempt, although it did not occur until three months after he left office. On April 13, 1993, the former president visited Kuwait University, in Kuwait City. Local authorities arrested 17 persons on charges of plotting to assassinate Bush with a car bomb. Two of the suspects allegedly confessed, then recanted at trial, claiming they were coerced into signing the incriminating statements. FBI investigators linked captured explosives from the car bomb, found on April 14 in Kuwait City, to a manufacturer in Iraq, where dictator Saddam Hussein presumably plotted to kill Bush in retaliation for America’s defense of Kuwait in the first Gulf War (1990–1991). On June 27, 1993, acting under the code name “Operation Southern Watch,” President Bill Clinton retaliated with 23 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from U.S. naval ships against the Iraqi Intelligence Headquarters in Baghdad. Further Reading CNN News. “Bush Grenade Attacker Gets Life.” January 11, 2006. http://www.cnn .com/2006/WORLD/europe/01/11/georgia.grenade/index.html. Federal Bureau of Investigation. “The Case of the Failed Hand Grenade Attack.” January 11, 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20070411035739/http://www.fbi.gov/ page2/jan06/grenadeattack011106.htm. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI Laboratory: An Investigation into Alleged Misconduct in Explosives-Related and Other Cases. http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/oig/ fbilab1/05bush2.htm. Martin, Susan Taylor. “Of Fact, Fiction: Bush on 9/11.” St. Petersburg (FL) Times. http:// www.sptimes.com/2004/07/04/news_pf/Worldandnation/Of_fact__fiction__Bus .shtml.

63

This page intentionally left blank

C CAESAR, GAIUS JULIUS (100 BCE–44 BCE) On March 15, 44 BCE, Roman chief of state Julius Caesar kept a scheduled appointment with the senate, some 40 to 60 of whose members had conspired to kill him, thereby ending his seven-week reign as dictator in perpetuity. As Caesar entered the chamber, Tillius Cimber approached him with a petition for the recall of Cimber’s exiled brother, while more conspirators crowded around in support. The crowd drew knives, with Servilius Casca reportedly striking first. Caesar received 23 wounds, but historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus reports that only one—to the chest—was fatal. His account, and that of historian Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, records no dying words from Caesar. The dying dictator’s comment “Et tu, Brute?”—supposedly addressed to friend-turned-killer Marcus Junius Brutus—was an apocryphal remark added posthumously, already well known by the time it was echoed in William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar. Gaius Julius Caesar was born on July 13, 100 BCE, into the gens Julia, an ancient patrician family that claimed descent from the goddess Venus by way of Iulus, son of the mythical Trojan prince Aeneas. Four different explanations are offered for the cognomen (third name) “Caesar”: Pliny the Elder asserts that it derived from an ancestor born by caesarean section, whereas the Augustan history speculates that the first Caesar either had gray eyes (Latin oculiscaesiis), thick hair (Latin caesaries), or had killed an elephant (Moorish caesai) at some point in time. Julius Caesar indirectly supported the last theory by minting coins impressed with images of elephants. Caesar came of age in an era of turmoil, marked by war and the political purges of dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla. With his father’s death in 85 BCE, 16-year-old Caesar became head of the family, promoted the following year to serve as a high priest of Jupiter. As a nephew of Gaius Marius and son-in-law of Lucius Cornelius Cinna—both enemies of Sulla—Caesar was targeted for eradication, stripped of his wealth and priesthood, driven into exile. He returned to Rome in 78 BCE, with Sulla safely dead, and labored to restore his fortune as a legal advocate, earning renown for captivating oratory. In 75 BCE, while crossing the Aegean Sea, Caesar was taken prisoner by Sicilian pirates. After he was ransomed for a price of 50 talents (3,550 pounds) of gold, Caesar raised a fleet, captured his kidnappers, and had them crucified.

66

CAESAR, GAIUS JULIUS

That incident secured his election as a military tribune, the first step in a Roman political career, and the year 69 BCE saw him elected as a quaestor— treasurer—of Roman-occupied Spain. In 63 BCE, he won election as Pontifex Maximus, the highest-ranking priest of Rome’s official state religion, and after two years in that post he returned to Spain as governor. In 60 BCE, Caesar and Marcus Bilbulus were elected as consuls of Rome, the republic’s highest office, held by two men jointly. His support in that election marked by fraud and bribery came chiefly from Marcus Licinius Crassus and from Julius Caesar, Rome’s first emperor, murdered by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, commonly known as Pompey. senators in March 44 B.C.E. (Getty Images) A consul’s one-year term was barely long enough for Caesar to enrich himself from graft in his province, which encompassed northern Italy and southern France. Dodging threats of prosecution for embezzlement, he next launched the military career that would enshrine him in Roman history. Caesar’s Gallic Wars of 58–52 BCE left Rome in control of Gaul (now France), crushing both domestic uprisings and Germanic invasions. In 50 BCE, the senate, led by Pompey, ordered Caesar to disband his forces and return to Rome—presumably for prosecution on outstanding charges from his year as consul. While dispersing part of his army, Caesar kept the elite Thirteenth Legion intact and led it back to Italy, crossing the Rubicon River in force on January 10, 49 BCE. A four-year civil war ensued, with Caesar and second-in-command Mark Antony marching into Rome. Chief rival Pompey fled to Spain, then to Egypt, where he was finally killed in September 48 BCE, by King Ptolemy XIII, acting in concert with Caesar. Victorious, Caesar was proclaimed dictator of Rome for a one-year term, but was soon embroiled in conflict between Ptolemy XIII and his sister/wife/queen Cleopatra. Caesar defeated Ptolemy’s army—and killed the young king—at the Battle of the Nile, in February 47 BCE.

CALIGULA

MURDERED ROMAN EMPERORS Although Julius Caesar’s assassination is the most famous from ancient Rome, he was not the only Roman emperor to die by violence. Excluding those who fell in battle, 43 heads of state were dispatched by assassination or summary execution over a span of 1,142 years. They include Gaius Caligula (41 CE), Claudius (54), Galba (69), Vitellius (69), Domitian (96), Commodus (192), Didius Julianus (193), Geta (211), Caracalla (217), Macrinus (218), Diadumenian (218), Elagabulus (222), Alexander Severus (235), Maximus Thrax (238), Pupienus Maximus (238), Balbinus (238), Phillip the Arab (249), Gallus (253), Volusianus (253), Aemilianus (253), Gallienus (268), Aurelian (272), Tacitus (276), Florianus (276), Probus (282), Carinus (285), Constans I (350), Gratians (383), Valentinan III (455), Petronius Maximus (455), Athemius (472), Julius Nepos (480), Maurice I (602), Phocas (610), Constans II (668), Leontios (698), Tiberius III (706), Justinian II (711), Leo V (820), Michael III (867), Nicephoros II (867), Romanus (1034), and Alexius II (1183).

Back in Rome by 46 BCE, Caesar was reelected as consul, this time without sharing the office. His subsequent election as dictator in perpetuity, in February 44 BCE, focused opposition from supporters of the late republic and set the wheels in motion for his murder. Ironically, many Romans resented the aristocratic plot against Caesar, a sentiment Mark Antony used to stir up riotous mobs. Gaius Octavian, Caesar’s grandnephew and sole heir led the disaffected populace in a new round of civil warfare that ultimately doomed the republic Caesar’s assassins had tried to save. Further Reading Freeman, Philip. Julius Caesar. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. Goldsworthy, Adrian. Caesar: Life of a Colossus. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. Parenti, Michael. The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome. New York: The New Press, 2003.

CALIGULA (12 CE–41 CE) On January 24, 41 CE, while addressing a troupe of actors scheduled to perform in celebrations for the “divine spirit” of Julius Caesar, Emperor Caligula was accosted by centurion Cassius Chaerea and other members of the Praetorian Guard.

67

68

CALIGULA

Chaerea hated Caligula for the emperor’s relentless insults, focused chiefly on insinuations of effeminacy after Chaerea had suffered a genital wound while serving Caligula’s father, General Germanicus. This day, after a furious exchange of words, Chaerea stabbed Caligula, with other soldiers joining in to inflict 30 wounds. Hours later, conspirators also killed Caligula’s wife, Milonia Caesonia, and their daughter, Julia Drusilla, thus extinguishing the royal line. Caligula—born Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus on August 31, 12 CE—was a member of Rome’s Julio-Claudian dynasty, founded by Julius Caesar and ending with Nero. His popular name, translated from Latin as “little soldier’s boot,” refers to his father Germanicus, one of Rome’s best-loved military champions. Following the death of Germanicus at Antioch in October 19, widow Agrippina the Elder returned to Rome and became embroiled in a feud with Emperor Tiberius, whom she blamed for killing Germanicus (his adopted son). That 10-year conflict decimated Agrippina’s family and ended with her own death in prison, leaving Caligula as her only surviving son. When Tiberius died in March 37 CE, Caligula succeeded his adoptive grandfather as emperor. His reign was controversial, to say the least. Contemporary sources from 37 CE and 38 CE describe him as a moderate and exemplary ruler, whereas later documents portray him tyrannical, perverse, and possibly insane. Historian Suetonius reports that 160,000 animals were sacrificed in celebration during the first three months of Caligula’s reign, and Philo described the first seven months as “completely blissful.” Caligula granted bonuses to Roman troops, repealed the convictions of alleged traitors prosecuted under Tiberius, recalled some prominent Romans from exile, and staged lavish entertainment in Rome, including gladiatorial contests. On the other hand, he executed his cousin and adopted son Tiberius Gemellus (an act that drove their mutual grandmother to suicide), along with father-in-law Marcus Junius Silanus and brother-in-law Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, sparing uncle Claudius to serve as a public laughingstock. Caligula also exiled his sisters, Julia Livilla and Agrippina the Younger. Financial crises and famines ensued, and Caligula’s relations with the Roman senate deteriorated. Aspiring to divinity by 40 CE, Caligula adopted the garb of various gods and demigods from mythology, naming himself as Jupiter in certain public documents and posing as a sun god on newly minted coins. Royal scandals multiplied, involving adultery, sexual perversion, and murders committed for sadistic pleasure. On occasion, he paraded his wife in the nude before visitors, threatening to torture and kill her as “an odd form of affection.” The exile of his sisters followed accusations that Caligula had forced them into incest. Surrounded by enemies, Caligula ensured his own destruction by publicly humiliating Cassius Chaerea. He mocked Chaerea’s high-pitched voice, compelled Chaerea to kiss his hand while “forming and moving it in an obscene

C A˘ L I N E S C U , A R M A N D

fashion,” and constantly forced Chaerea to use embarrassing passwords— “Priapus” (for “erection”) and “Venus” (contemporary slang for a eunuch)— while serving on guard duty. Following the murders of Caligula, his wife, and daughter, Chaerea’s conspirators sought to kill Claudius and restore the Roman Republic, but Claudius escaped and loyal officers of the Praetorian Guard named him to succeed Caligula as emperor. Chaerea was condemned for the assassination and, at his own request, was executed with the sword he used to stab Caligula. Caligula’s near-mythical status assured his frequent portrayal in popular fiction and drama. Examples include the novel I, Claudius, by Robert Graves (1934), adapted several times for stage, radio, film, and television: the play Caligula, by Albert Camus (written in 1938, performed in 1945); two films with Jay Robinson cast as Caligula, The Robe (1953); Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954); Independent Television’s 1968 series The Caesars; the X-rated feature film Caligula (1979); another film, also titled Caligula (1996); and the 2004 TV miniseries Imperium Nerone. Less traditional portrayals of Caligula include a 1978 Judge Dredd comic strip; a videogame, The Elder Scrolls, premiered in 1994; another game, Viva Caligula, produced online by Adult Swim in 2008; and a comic book series based on Caligula, launched by Avatar Press in 2011. All adhere to the usual themes of Caligula’s pathological addiction to sex and violence. Further Reading Barrett, Anthony. Caligula: The Corruption of Power. London: Batsford, 1989. Ferrill, Arthur. Caligula: Emperor of Rome. London: Thames & Hudson, 1991. Kerrigan, Michael. Dark History of the Roman Emperors. London: Amber Books, 2012. Winterling, Aloys. Caligula: A Biography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.

˘ LINESCU, ARMAND (1893–1939) CA Romanian prime minister Armand Ca˘ linescu faced a critical challenge in September 1939. Elected six months before the German invasion of Poland began World War II, C˘alinescu and his National Renaissance Front were committed to neutrality in the expanding conflict. They were opposed by the Iron Guard, a fascist group supported by Adolf Hitler’s Gestapo, which had assassinated Prime Minister Ion Duca in December 1933. By mid-September, a strike force had been organized to kill Ca˘ linescu, including attorney Dumitru “Miti” Dumitrescu, draftsman Ion Vasiliu, and four students: Ion Ionescu, Ion Moldoveanu, Cezar Popescu, and Traian Popescu. On September 21, as C˘alinescu was returning to Bucharest from the Cotroceni Palace, the assassins staged their ambush in the Prahova Valley. Dumitrescu crashed his car into C˘alinescu’s Cadillac and the others opened fire, killing C˘alinescu, bodyguard Radu Andone, and

69

70

C A˘ L I N E S C U , A R M A N D

their driver. The killers then proceeded to invade the headquarters of Radio România, holding employees at gunpoint for a bungled attempt to broadcast news of C˘alinescu’s death. A native of Pites¸ ti, the son of an affluent veterinarian and landowner, Armand C˘alinescu was born on June 4, 1893. He studied law and philosophy at the University of Bucharest, then earned a PhD in economics and political science from the University of Paris. Rejected by Romania’s National Liberal Party for his leftist views, C a˘ linescu joined the opposing Peasants’ Party and won elections to the Chamber of Deputies in 1926, serving there for 11 years. In 1931, he led a move to outlaw the Iron Guard, earning him the hatred of its leaders. In December 1937, he accepted appointment as Prime Minister Octavian Goga’s minister of the interior—a move resulting in Ca˘ linescu’s expulsion from the Peasants’ Party. A stroke killed Goga in May 1938, thus leading to the dissolution of his government. C˘alinescu retained his post under King Carol II, and then replaced Prime Minister Miron Cristea at his death, on March 6, 1939. Regarded as a “man of steel” who could defeat the Iron Guard, C a˘ linescu ordered sweeping arrests of its leaders in May 1939, resulting in an estimated 300 deaths. On September 1, in Copenhagen, Gestapo agents and representatives from Fascist Italy met with Iron Guard members and Mihail Sturdza— Romania’s ambassador to Denmark and a friend of exiled Iron Guard leader Horia Sima. Together, as later described by Iron Guard turncoat Mihai Vârfureanu, they planned to murder C˘alinescu, King Carol, and General Gavril˘a Marinescu, among other Romanian leaders. Dumitru Dumitrescu received Gestapo training for the project, then returned home through Hungary to lead the murder team on September 21. Harsh repression of the Iron Guard followed C˘alinescu’s death. His assassins were executed, their corpses displayed with a placard reading “De acumînainte, aceastava fi soartatr˘ad˘atorilor de ¸tar˘a ” (“From now on, this shall be the fate of those who betray the country”), and another 253 Iron Guard members were killed without trial in various towns. The movement subsequently triumphed, briefly, in alliance with pro-Nazi prime minister Ion Antonescu, beginning in September 1940, but its failure to unseat him in a coup on January 24, 1941, doomed the Iron Guard in Romania. Sima and other leaders fled to Germany, organizing a government in exile, while the regime at home collaborated in the Holocaust. Antonescu was executed for war crimes on June 1, 1946. Further Reading Ancel, Jean. The History of the Holocaust in Romania. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011. Dogaru, Mircea. History of the Romanians. Bucharest: Amco Press, 1996. Georgescu, Vlad. The Romanians: A History. London: I.B. Tauris, 1991. Hitchens, Keith. Rumania 1866–1947. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.

CANALEJAS Y MÉNDEZ, JOSÉ

CANALEJAS Y MÉNDEZ, JOSÉ (1854–1912) On November 12, 1912, Spanish prime minister José Canalejas followed his normal daily routine of walking from home to the ministry of the interior, in downtown Madrid. Two plainclothes policemen accompanied him as bodyguards, but on orders from Canalejas they remained 20 paces behind him. Pausing on his way to inspect books displayed in the window of the San Martin Library, Canalejas was approached and shot repeatedly by 32-year-old anarchist Manuel Pardiñas. A bodyguard rushed forward and struck Pardiñas on the head, dodging a bullet the gunman fired in return; Pardiñas then used his last round on himself. Carried by police to the ministry, Canalejas died moments after telling a police inspector, “This wretch has killed me.” Born at Ferrol, in Galicia, on July 31, 1854, José Canalejas graduated from the University of Madrid in 1871, earned his PhD a year later, and joined the school as a lecturer in the literature department in 1873, later publishing a two-volume history of Latin literature. Turning to politics, he was elected as a deputy from Soria in 1881, served as undersecretary for Prime Minister José Posada Herrera in 1883, acted as Práxedes Mateo Sagasta’s minister of justice from 1888, then as his minister of finance in 1894–1895. Under Segismundo Moret, Canalejas was elected president of the Congress of Deputies. In February 1910, as head of the Liberal Party, he became prime minister. During his two-year term in office, with support from King Alfonso XIII, Canalejas introduced electoral reforms aimed at curbing the power of rural political bosses, weakening Roman Catholic influence over Spain’s government, and nudging Spain in the direction of democracy. Those policies upset some clerics and conservatives who saw their power threatened, but the moderate reforms were insufficient to defuse radical anger on the left. A week of bloody rioting in Barcelona, in July 1909, had targeted the government and church alike, leaving 112 dead, 124 wounded, and 1,700 charged with “armed rebellion” (5 of whom were executed, 59 sentenced to life imprisonment). One of those executed, in October 1909, was anarchist spokesman Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia. Before Manuel Pardiñas died from his self-inflicted head wound, police determined that he was a great admirer of Ferrer and acted in retaliation for his hero’s execution without trial. Spanish historian Salvador de Madariaga later asserted that his homeland’s subsequent troubles—military rule from 1923 to 1931, a bloody civil war in 1936, Fascist rule under dictators Francisco Franco and Luis Carrero Blanco from 1936 to 1973—stemmed from the Canalejas murder, which deprived Spain of an influential advocate for true democracy. Further Reading Carr, Raymond. Spain: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Peirats, José. Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution. London: Freedom Press, 1990.

71

72

C Á N O VA S D E L C A S T I L L O , A N T O N I O

Phillips Jr., William, and Carla Phillips. A Concise History of Spain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

CÁNOVAS DEL CASTILLO, ANTONIO (1828–1897) Serving his sixth term as prime minister of Spain, Antonio Cánovas ranked among the most despised and feared of politicians serving under King Alfonso XIII. By August 1897, his suppression of dissent in Cuba and at home—where mass arrests and brutal torture were compared by critics to the Spanish Inquisition of the 15th century—his list of enemies ranged from domestic anarchists to President William McKinley’s administration in Washington, D.C. On August 8, while visiting the Santa Águeda spa in Mondragón, Cánovas was shot and killed by 26-year-old anarchist Michele Angiolillo Lombardi, who surrendered to police without resistance. Confronted in jail by his victim’s widow, Angiolillo said, “Pardon, Madame. I respect you as a lady, but I regret that you were the wife of that man.” A native of Málaga, born on February 8, 1828, Antonio Cánovas was raised by his mother’s cousin in Madrid after his father’s death. He studied law but focused on politics at an early age. In July 1854, he wrote the Manifesto of Manzanares, justifying General Leopoldo O’Donnell’s coup d’état against dictator Baldomero Espartero. Cánovas later served Queen Isabella II as an envoy to Rome, governor of Cádiz, and director general of local administration. Briefly retired from government after the Glorious Revolution deposed Isabella in 1868, Cánovas remained an outspoken champion of monarchy, and returned to serve his first term as prime minister in 1874–1875, after General Arsenio Martínez-Campos y Antón toppled the First Spanish Republic and placed King Alfonso XII on the throne. Thereafter, Cánovas was rarely far from the seat of power in Madrid. Joaquín Jovellar y Soler replaced him as prime minister in September 1875, but Cánovas regained his office three months later, with his second term extending to March 1879. Subsequent terms ran from December 1879 to February 1881, January 1884 to November 1885, and July 1890 to December 1892. Back again in March 1895, Cánovas faced an imperial crisis in Cuba. Claimed by Spain in 1492, the distant island had simmered with violent dissent throughout the 19th century. A Ten Years’ War (1868–1878) and subsequent Little War (1879–1880) had failed to throw off Spanish rule, but exiled rebel José Martí tried again in February 1895. His death in May, at the Battle of Dos Rios, failed to quell the uprising, so Prime Minister Cánovas and General Valeriano Weyler opted for a policy of cruel oppression, establishing “reconcentration camps” where some 300,000 civilians suffered and died in captivity, often under torture. Cánovas ignored strident protests from the Red Cross and

CARLOS I OF PORTUGAL

U.S. senator Redfield Proctor (former secretary of war), and William Randolph Hearst used his newspaper chain to agitate for U.S. intervention. Seemingly oblivious to world opinion, Cánovas imposed the tactics used in Cuba on dissident Spaniards at home. In June 1896, after a bomb exploded during a Corpus Christi procession in Barcelona, Cánovas ordered the arrest of 300 anarchists, socialists, and trade unionists. Confined at Montjuïc Fortress, 87 were condemned and executed, and others suffered brutal torture, some of them driven insane. Seventy-one defendants were acquitted of all charges— but Cánovas still deported them to Río de Oro, a Spanish colony in West Africa (now Western Sahara). It was during this period of turmoil that Michele Angiolillo traveled from Paris to seek revenge against Cánovas. He was executed by garotte, at Bergara, on August 20, 1897. The New York Times reported that he “died bravely,” with his pulse “quiet and unaltered,” whereas Spanish newspapers suppressed details of his execution. Further Reading Barton, Simon. A History of Spain. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Pierson, Peter. The History of Spain. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. Ross, Christopher. Spain Since 1812. London: Hodder Education, 2009. Trask, David. The War with Spain in 1898. New York: Macmillan, 1981.

CARLOS I OF PORTUGAL (1863–1908) On February 1, 1908, the Portuguese royal family returned to Lisbon from a month-long holiday at Vila Viçosa. Disembarking from their train at Cais do Sodré station in central Lisbon, they boarded an open carriage for the last leg of their journey to the Queluz National Palace. While passing through the Praça do Comércio (Commerce Square), beside the Tagus River, they were ambushed by republican activists Manuel Buiça and Alfredo Costa. Armed with a rifle and pistol, respectively, they fired multiple shots into the carriage, killing King Carlos I instantly, fatally wounding Prince Royal Luís Filipe, striking Prince Manuel in the arm, and wounding the coachman in one hand. Buiça also wounded a soldier, Henrique da Silva Valente, who intervened to spoil his aim. Only Queen Amélie of Orleans escaped injury, as police killed both assailants and an innocent bystander. Born in Lisbon on September 28, 1863, the son of King Luís I and Queen Maria Pia of Savoy, Carlos Fernando Luís Maria Víctor Miguel Rafael Gabriel Gonzaga Xavier Francisco de Assis José Simão boasted a roster of royal relatives including King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony, and King Ferdinand I of Romania. Succeeding to the Portuguese throne upon his father’s death, in October 1889, Carlos faced his first

73

74

CARLOS I OF PORTUGAL

crisis three months later, with the British ultimatum of January 1890, breaching the 1386 Treaty of Windsor to dispute Portuguese territorial claims in Africa. Carlos signed the controversial Treaty of London in August 1890, relinquishing much of Angola and Mozambique, while furious protests erupted at home. Chief among the protesters were leaders of the Portuguese Republican Party and the Carbonária, a conspiratorial revolutionary society opposed to both the monarchy and the Catholic Church. Republicans won only 2.7 percent of the popular vote nationKing Carlos I of Portugal, assassinated by repub- wide in 1906—four seats in the National Assembly, all from lican rebels. (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis) Lisbon—but its support concentrated in the capital and in Porto, where party leader Bernardino Machado proclaimed, “We are the majority.” The Carbonária, founded in 1896 by Artur Augusto Duarte da Luz de Almeida, preferred direct action to electioneering, organizing along military lines to recruit an estimated 40,000 members— including many frustrated republicans. Further agitation came from the Liberal Regenerator Party, organized by João Franco in 1901, and from Progressive Dissidence, founded by José Maria de Alpoim in 1905. Dissident parties battled one another, while condemning the monarchy for inefficiency and failure to support reform. Carlos responded to that opposition by naming João Franco as prime minister in May 1906. Franco tried to form a coalition with Progressive Party leader and two-time former prime minister José Luciano de Castro, but failing there, he persuaded Carlos to suspend future elections until Franco deemed them practical, while censoring the press and jailing dissidents. Those moves predictably increased political tension, prompting Republican Party spokesman Alfons Costa to say that “for less than Dom Carlos has done, the head of Louis XVI fell.” Franco responded to increasing agitation with Costa’s arrest, detention of 93 other republicans, and a ban on public meetings.

CARR ANZ A DE L A GAR Z A, VENUSTIANO

After the assassinations of February 1908, Prince Manuel was proclaimed king of Portugal. He proved to be the nation’s last monarch, deposed and exiled by a republican revolution in October 1910. João Franco was long gone by then, driven from office and from public life by successor Francisco Joaquim Ferreira do Amaral on February 4, 1908. A two-year investigation of the royal murders indicted several Carbonária suspects on October 5, 1910, but they were spared from trial by a republican coup d’état that deposed King Manuel II and established the First Portuguese Republic. Further Reading Anderson, James. The History of Portugal. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. Birmingham, David. A Concise History of Portugal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Hatton, Barry. The Portuguese: A Modern History. Northampton, MA: Interlink, 2011.

CARRANZA DE LA GARZA, VENUSTIANO (1859–1920) Mexican president Venustiano Carranza literally dodged a bullet on April 20, 1920, when an aide to rival candidate Álvaro Obregón Salido tried to kill him in Mexico City. Frustrated, Obregón allied himself with Adolfo de la Huerta, the rebellious governor of Sonora, and led troops to the capital. Carranza fled with his cabinet ministers toward Veracruz, but stopped to rest at Tlaxcalantongo in the Sierra Norte de Puebla Mountains. There, the party was surprised by hostile troops under General Rodolfo Herrero, with Carranza shot dead while he slept. Venustiano Carranza was the son of an affluent cattleman, born at Cuatro Ciénegas in the state of Coahuila on December 28, 1859. His family’s wealth secured him a first-class education and propelled him into politics, becoming municipal president of his hometown in 1887. Disillusioned by the authoritarian style of President Porfirio Díaz, Carranza joined 300 other Coahuila ranchers to oppose the rigged reelection of Governor José María Garza Galán in 1893. Diaz sent an emissary to negotiate with Carranza, and accepted his aide’s recommendation that Garza retire, while Carranza serve a second term as president of Cuatro Ciénegas (1894–1898), then advanced to the state legislature, and finally to the Mexican senate (in 1904). Diaz approved his candidacy for governor of Coahuila in, then reneged in favor of Jesús de Valle. Embittered, Carranza won the coveted post in 1911, while scheming to unseat Diaz. Before he could strike, Francisco Madero led a revolution that deposed Diaz and drove him into exile, in May 1911. Victoriano Huerta deposed and

75

76

C A R R E R O B L A N C O, L U I S

executed Madero in February 1913, installing himself as president, and Carranza drafted the Plan of Guadalupe, raising a Constitutional Army with support from rebel leaders including Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. As that army’s Primer Jefe (“First Chief ”), he forced Huerta’s surrender in August 1914, officially succeeding him on August 14. The winning coalition soon dissolved, Zapata first deserting Carranza in September 1914, when Carranza refused to institute the sweeping reforms Zapata demanded. Villa soon followed, citing issues of his own, and fighting resumed among the former allies. Victorious by January 1915, Carranza instituted his own program of reform, including propagation of a new constitution, ratified in 1917. He was determined to retire with that accomplishment, when his term expired in 1920, but insisted that Mexico’s next president should be a civilian. Álvaro Obregón and other generals opposed that plan, prompting intrigue that culminated with Carranza’s April assassination. Adolfo de la Huerta served as Mexico’s provisional president until December 1, 1920, when Obregón officially secured the office, with Huerta demoted to secretary of the treasury. Obregón charged General Herrero with Carranza’s murder, but he was acquitted on grounds that the actual triggerman could not be identified. Herrero still spent seven months in the military prison at Santiago Tlaltelolco, fighting treason charges, then was released with a dishonorable discharge from the army. Curiously, Obregón later reinstated him as a general, leaving President Lázaro Cárdenas to make Herrero’s dismissal permanent, in the 1930s. Further Reading Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Gibbon, Thomas. Mexico Under Carranza: A Lawyer’s Indictment of the Crowning Infamy of Four Hundred Years of Misrule. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1919. Richmond, Douglas. Venustiano Carranza’s Nationalist Struggle, 1893–1920. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. Stout, Joseph. Border Conflict: Villistas, Carrancistas and the Punitive Expedition, 1915–1920. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1999.

CARRERO BLANCO, LUIS (1904–1973) When ailing dictator Francisco Franco formally retired as Spain’s prime minister, in June 1973, handpicked successor Luis Carrero Blanco assumed office— and inherited the enmity of militant Basque separatists organized as the ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, “Basque Homeland and Freedom”). While serving as vice president, from 1967, Blanco had supervised repressive measures targeting the ETA and other dissidents. Now, the ETA mounted “Operation Ogre,” fielding a team that rented a Madrid apartment on the street Carrero Blanco

C A R R E R O B L A N C O, L U I S

to church each Sunday. Tunneling beneath the road over a fivemonth period, the team planted 176 pounds of explosives stolen from a government arsenal. As Carrero Blanco’s car passed on December 20, 1973, the bombers detonated their charge, launching the vehicle 65 feet in the air, over one five-story building, to land on the secondfloor balcony of a Jesuit college. Carrero Blanco died in the blast, with a bodyguard and his chauffeur. The ETA claimed responsibility on January 22, 1974. A native of Santoña, born on March 4, 1904, Luis Carrero Blanco entered the Spanish Naval Academy in 1918, subsequently participating in the Rif War of 1924–1926, against Moroccan Berber tribesmen. He Spanish prime minister Luis Carrero Blanco died at initially supported the Second the hands of Basque separatists. (Bettmann/Corbis) Spanish Republic when civil war broke out in 1936, then defected in June 1937 to serve as a naval officer with Franco’s rebel forces. Rising through the ranks and gaining influence in Franco’s Falange Party, Carrero Blanco became a cabinet minister in 1957, a vice admiral in 1963, and a full admiral in 1966. In 1967, he succeeded General Agustín Muñoz Grandes as Spain’s vice president and heir apparent to post of Caudillode España (Leader of Spain) upon Franco’s demise. ETA spokesman Julen Agirre justified Carrero Blanco’s assassination in a manifesto that declared: The execution in itself had an order and some clear objectives. From the beginning of 1951 Carrero Blanco practically occupied the government headquarters in the regime. Carrero Blanco symbolized better than anyone else the figure of ‘pure Francoism’ and without totally linking himself to any of the Francoist tendencies, he covertly attempted to push Opus Dei into power. A man without scruples conscientiously mounted his own State within the State: he created a network of informers within the Ministries, in the Army, in the Falange, and also in Opus Dei. His police managed to put themselves into all the Francoist apparatus. Thus he made himself the key element of the system and a fundamental

77

78

CASTILLO AR M AS, CARLOS

piece of the oligarchy’s political game. On the other hand, he came to be irreplaceable for his experience and capacity to manoeuvre and because nobody managed as he did to maintain the internal equilibrium of Francoism.

Franco survived and controlled Spain through puppet presidents until November 1975. Carrero Blanco’s killers eluded police, but the team’s leader, José Beñaran Ordeñana, was himself assassinated with a car bomb in December 1978, a reprisal carried out by allied neo-fascist groups including Argentine Anticommunist Alliance and Italy’s National Vanguard, with collaboration from Spain’s Naval Intelligence Service. Further Reading Agirre, Julen. Operation Ogro: The Execution of Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco. New York: Ballantine, 1976. Anderson, Wayne. The ETA: Spain’s Basque Terrorists. New York: Rosen Publishing, 2003. Clark, Robert. The Basque Insurgents: ETA, 1952–1980. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984. Kurlansky, Mark. The Basque History of the World. New York: Penguin Books, 2001. Woodworth, Paddy. Dirty War, Clean Hands: ETA, the GAL and Spanish Democracy. Cork, Ireland: Cork University Press, 2001.

CASTILLO ARMAS, CARLOS (1914–1957) Carlos Castillo Armas celebrated his third anniversary as president of Guatemala on July 8, 1957. Eighteen days later, he was assassinated at the National Palace in Guatemala City. Authorities said Castillo was shot at 9:00 P.M. on July 26, in the palace dining room, as he and his wife sat down for dinner. They blamed the crime on 20-year-old Romeo Vasquez Sanchez, a member of the palace guard who then committed suicide. A communiqué released on August 3 described Vasquez as a “Communist fanatic” who was expelled from the Guatemalan army in June 1955, then somehow found his next job at the palace. At his death, Vasquez allegedly carried a card from the Latin American service of Radio Moscow, reading: “It is our pleasure, dear listener, to engage in correspondence with you. We are very thankful for your regular listening to these programs.” Police also claimed to possess a 40-page diary, in which Vasquez wrote, “I have had the opportunity to study Russian communism. The great nation that is Russia is fulfilling a most important mission in history . . . the Soviet Union is the first world power in progress and scientific research.” That document reportedly closed with a reference to the gunman’s “diabolic plan to put an end to the existence of the man who holds power.” Born on November 4, 1914, Carlos Castillo Armas served in Guatemala’s army until 1950, when he led an abortive coup d’état against President Juan José Arévalo. Wounded and imprisoned, he escaped from custody and fled to Colombia, then to Honduras, where he worked as a furniture salesman,

CASTILLO AR M AS, CARLOS

biding his time for a comeback. His opportunity arrived with the 1951 election of Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, whose administration launched a campaign of agrarian reform in Guatemala threatening the economic interests of the United Fruit Company (UFC). Major UFC stockholders included U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles and his brother, Allen, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). With the blessings of President Dwight Eisenhower, the Dulles brothers launched “Operation PBFORTUNE” in 1952, enlisting military aid from Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García and compiling Guatemalan president Carlos Castillo Armas, allega list of “top flight Commu- edly shot by a Communist rebel in 1957. (Bettmann/ nists whom the new government Corbis) would desire to eliminate immediately in the event of a successful anti-Communist coup.” Castillo Armas agreed to lead the CIA’s “National Liberation Movement” against Árbenz, and although his first incursion failed on March 29, 1953, Árbenz was deposed by a second offensive (code-named “Operation PBSUCCESS”) in June 1954. Castillo Armas took office as president on July 8, bankrolled with $80 million from Washington over the next three years, and the CIA conducted “Operation PBHISTORY,” manipulating world opinion toward belief that Árbenz was a tool of Moscow. Once in power, Castillo Armas swiftly reversed the Árbenz reforms, driving peasants from the land they had been granted during 1951–1953, purging the government and trade unions of alleged leftists, banning political parties and peasant organizations, and signing a Preventive Penal Law against Communism, which imposed prison terms for various “subversive” activities (including organization of labor unions). Encouraged by the CIA, Castillo Armas also organized the National Committee of Defense against Communism (NCDAC), invested with power to detain any suspected Reds for six months without trial. By November 1954, the committee had compiled a list of 72,000 alleged “communists,” many of whom were arrested and tortured, with some “disappeared” forever. Today, the NCDAC is widely regarded as Latin America’s first death squad.

79

80

CASTRO RUZ, FIDEL ALEJANDRO

U.S. vice president Richard Nixon visited Guatemala in 1955, proclaiming that “President Castillo Armas’s objective, ‘to do more for the people in two years than the Communists were able to do in ten years’, is important. This is the first instance in history where a Communist government has been replaced by a free one.” Freedom was relative, however, as the new regime maintained repressive policies, later deemed genocidal by the country’s Historical Clarification Commission. In the year of Nixon’s visit, Castillo Armas canceled presidential elections, while permitting only members of his own party to run for Congress. In 1956, he imposed a new constitution, naming himself as president until 1960. Various generals succeeded Castillo Armas as Guatemala’s dictator, prompting a leftist coup in November 1960 that touched off a 36-year civil war. At least 200,000 persons died in that conflict, with another 40,000 to 50,000 missing. Peace accords were signed in December 1996. Several military officers were later convicted of war crimes and sentenced to prison, with trials continuing through 2011. Further Reading Cullather, Nick. Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala 1952–1954. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006. Grow, Michael. U.S. Presidents and Latin American Interventions: Pursuing Regime Change in the Cold War. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008. Kinzer, Stephen. Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. New York: Times Books, 2006. Kinzer, Stephen, and Stephen Schlesinger. Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. La Feber, Walter. Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America. New York: Norton, 1993.

CASTRO RUZ, FIDEL ALEJANDRO (1926– )— ATTEMPTED On November 28, 2006, Britain’s television Channel 4 aired a documentary film titled 638 Ways to Kill Castro, detailing some of the murder plots directed against Cuban president Fidel Castro over half a century. Sponsored by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in league with organized crime and far-right Cuban exiles, the methods employed or debated—none successful— included snipers, exploding seashells and fungus-laden wetsuits, cigars and handkerchiefs infected with bacteria, a radio loaded with poison gas, and a fountain pen containing a lethal syringe. Born on August 13, 1926, at Birán, in Cuba’s Holguín Province, Fidel Castro was initially supported by the CIA in his campaign against longtime dictator Fulgencio Batista, whose corruption and brutality made him embarrassing as

CASTRO RUZ, FIDEL ALEJANDRO

a U.S. ally. Castro deposed Batista in January 1959, encouraging Washington with his announcement that “power does not interest me, and I will not take it.” He changed his mind a month later, however, and embarked on a sharp leftward course that included nationalizing land and facilities owned by U.S. investors. At the same time, he closed casinos and brothels owned by U.S. gangsters, ensuring their support for subsequent plots to destroy him. In a CIA memo dated December 11, 1959, CIA director Allen Dulles ordered that “consideration be given to the elimination of Castro.” A month later the agency launched “Operation 40,” aimed at “careful planning of covert actions” to “legitimize” U.S. intervention in Cuba. On March 9, 1960, recommendations were advanced to “eliminate the leaders [Fidel Castro, brother Raul Castro, and Che Guevara] with a single blow.” In August the CIA acquired a box of Fidel’s favorite cigars and spiked them with poison. On September 2, 1960, CIA chief of operational support James O’Connell reported that the murder plan had officially commenced. When the cigars failed, O’Connell hatched a new plan with the agency’s technical services division, involving poison pills. By October 1960, Mafia leaders Sam Giancana, Santo Trafficante (briefly jailed by Castro in 1959), and John Rosselli were embroiled in fresh CIA conspiracies, officially dubbed Operation ZR/RIFLE in February 1961. Rosselli delivered poison pills to a friendly Cuban official on March 16, 1961, but the selected hit man was dismissed before he had a chance to strike. In April 1961, Rosselli passed more pills to Juan Orta, Castro’s personal secretary, but Orta was exposed and imprisoned. On September 24, 1961, Castro announced the exposure of “Operation AM/BLOOD,” a murder plot involving Cuban exiles trained by the CIA at Guantanamo Bay. Eleven days later, another plot was revealed, involving Castro opponent Antonio Veciana and CIA agent Maurice Bishop. Veciana fled Cuba, and his three accomplices were jailed. On November 1, 1961, the CIA launched “Operation Mongoose,” led by agent James O’Connell. Giancana, Trafficante, and Rosselli remained as key players, aided in some scenarios by mob financial genius Meyer Lansky (a key figure in Havana gambling prior to Batista’s downfall). ZR/RIFLE continued, meanwhile, with conspiracies running on parallel tracks. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, ever jealous of the CIA, revealed those plots to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in May 1962, and although Kennedy reportedly chastised CIA leaders for dealing with “hoodlum elements,” the plots continued. John Rosselli visited Cuba twice that summer, reporting on June 21 that a new assassin had infiltrated the island. Maxwell Taylor, chairman of “special group” created to pursue Castro’s elimination, authorized development of more aggressive plans on August 20, 1962. Operation Mongoose was officially disbanded three months later, following the Cuban missile crisis, but Castro’s enemy Rolando Cubela (code-name “AMLASH”) revived the

81

82

CASTRO RUZ, FIDEL ALEJANDRO

assassination plots in February 1963 and CIA agent William Harvey resumed meetings with Rosselli in April. President Lyndon Johnson privately suspected that attacks on Castro prompted Cuban retaliation in November 1963, with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy ( JFK). Be that as it may, efforts to murder Castro did not end with JFK’s administration. The last known attempt on Castro’s life occurred in 2000, during a visit to Panama. Cuban terrorist and ex-CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles placed 200 pounds of high explosives under a podium where Castro was scheduled to speak, but Cuban security personnel discovered the bomb and defused it. Posada and three accomplices were imprisoned for that attempt, later pardoned by outgoing president Mireya Moscoso in August 2004. Posada was subsequently convicted by Venezuelan prosecutors in absentia for the October 1976 bombing of Cubana Flight 455, which killed 73 persons, and for a series of 1997 bombings in Cuban hotels and nightclubs. Detained in Texas during 2005, Posada avoided extradition thanks to a superseding U.S. indictment and trial, ending with his acquittal on April 8, 2011. Although deadly serious, some of the plots against Castro assumed the aspect of black comedy. Supplied with poison pills, presidential lover Marita Lorenz hid them in a jar of cold cream, only to have them dissolve. She balked at forcing the cream into Castro’s mouth while he slept, and finally confessed to the plot. Castro, bemused, offered her his own pistol, whereupon Lorenz tearfully replied, “I can’t do it, Fidel.” Over time, Castro’s longevity became a running joke among his enemies. Fidel himself once remarked, “If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal.” One apocryphal story, recounted in New Yorker magazine, described a friend presenting Castro with a Galápagos tortoise. On hearing that his new pet might live for 100 years, Castro declined the gift, saying, “That’s the problem with pets. You get attached to them and then they die on you.” Further Reading Bohning, Don. The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations against Cuba, 1959–1965. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005. Breuer, William. Vendetta! Fidel Castro and the Kennedy Brothers. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. Escalante, Fabián. The Cuba Project: CIA Covert Operations 1959–62. New York: Ocean Press, 2004. Hinckle, Warren, and William Turner. The Fish Is Red. New York: Harper and Row, 1981. Russo, Gus. Live By The Sword: The Secret War against Castro and the Death of JFK. Baltimore: Bancroft Press, 1998. Von Tunzelmann, Alex. Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean. New York: Henry Holt, 2011.

C ATA RG I U, BA R B U

CATARGIU, BARBU (1807–1862) Romanian prime minister Barbu Catargiu left a hectic session of parliament at 5:00 P.M. on June 20, 1862, accompanied by Colonel Nicholas Bibescu, prefect of police for Bucharest. As their open carriage passed the ancient Metropolitan Church (now the Romanian Patriarchal Cathedral), a gunman hidden in the shadows fired two shots, one striking Catargiu at the base of his skull and killing him instantly. The frightened horses galloped on for several hundred feet before Bibescu could control them, and the assassin fled into vineyards on Metropolitanate Hill. He was never apprehended, and the crime remains officially unsolved. Barbu Catargiu was born in Wallachia on October 26, 1807, the son of a well-known political activist. From age 18 to 27 he lived in Paris, where he studied history, law, and philosophy. Returning home to serve in Wallachia’s Obsteasca Assembly, he left again during the Revolution of 1848 and earned his living abroad as a journalist until the violent upheaval subsided. Upon his next return, he entered politics with the intention of promoting evolutionary change over radical revolution. (Some accounts name Catargiu as a member of Romania’s Conservative Party, but in fact that group was not created until February 1880, long after his death.) He championed the boyars (serf-holding land owners), while asserting that “feudalism in Romania has never existed.” Under Prince of Wallachia Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Catargiu served as minister of finances from 1859 until he outgrew his liege, taking office as Romania’s first prime minister on February 15, 1862. An advocate of Romanian unity, Catargiu simplified government by reducing the number of administrative districts and began construction of a railroad to connect Moldavia’s provinces. At the same time, he continued his defense of boyar rule over serfs, censored the Romanian press, and banned large public assemblies. When Romanians gathered on June 13, 1862, to commemorate the Revolution of 1848 in Blaj, Transylvania, Catargiu’s soldiers barred them from Câmpia Libert˘a¸tii (“The Field of Liberty”), creating widespread anger and resentment. His assassination followed one week later. Dr. Nicolae Cret¸ulescu, a relative liberal, replaced Catargiu as prime minister on June 24, 1862. He avoided contentious debates over land reform, focusing instead on unification of Romania’s public health system, improving education through a Council for Public Instruction, and creating the Directorate General of the Public Archive to preserve historical documents. Prince Cuza was deposed and exiled by a military coup d’état in February 1866, replaced by Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (proclaimed King Carol I in May 1881). Carol I presided over an era of stability and progress, ending with his death in October 1914. Despite Catargiu’s general unpopularity, a statue of the late prime minister was erected near the site of his assassination, which remained in place until 1984.

83

84

CERMAK, ANTON JOSEPH

Further Reading Hitchins, Keith. The Romanians 1774–1866. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Jelavich, Barbara. Russia and the Formation of the Romanian National State 1821–1878. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

CERMAK, ANTON JOSEPH (1873–1933) On February 15, 1933, president-elect Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) addressed a crowd at Bayfront Park in Miami, Florida. After his brief remarks spectators flocked around his open touring car, but a flurry of gunshots disrupted the rush for handshakes. Bullets wounded five persons, including Chicago mayor Anton Cermak, who took a shot to the stomach. Before he was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital, Cermak purportedly told FDR, “I’m glad it was me instead of you.” Bystanders and police seized gunman Giuseppe Zangara, swiftly tried and sentenced to 80 years in prison for assault with intent to kill. That charge was upgraded to murder on March 6, when Cermak died from infection despite the best efforts of local physicians, and Zangara died in the electric chair on March 20, 1933. Anton Cermak was born in Kladno, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic) on May 9, 1873, emigrating to Chicago with his parents as an infant. He entered Windy City politics as a precinct captain, was elected to the state legislature in 1902, became alderman of the 12th Ward in 1909, and was elected president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 1922. He failed to win a U.S. Senate seat in 1928, but received 46 percent of the vote and finished that year as chairman of Cook County’s Democratic Party. In 1931, he challenged mayoral incumbent William “Big Bill” Thompson and emerged victorious despite—or because of— Thompson’s racist slurs, such as “Bohunk Chermack, or whatever his name is,” against Eastern European immigrants. Although some observers porChicago mayor Anton Cermak’s murder remains a trayed Cermak as a reformer in subject of controversy. (Bettmann/Corbis)

CERMAK, ANTON JOSEPH

the final years of Prohibition, Chicago insiders dubbed him “Ten-percent Tony,” a reference to the share of cash he skimmed from local rackets and corrupt government deals. Where Mayor Thompson had allied himself with mobster Al Capone—convicted of tax evasion six months after Cermak’s election— Cermak cast his lot with rival gangster Roger Touhy’s syndicate. On December 19, 1932, a police squad led by Detective Sergeants Harry Lang and Harry Miller raided Capone successor Frank Nitti’s headquarters at the La Salle Hotel. Lang shot Nitti three times, then gave himself a superficial wound and called the shooting self-defense. Nitti surprised his would-be killers by surviving and beat a charge of attempted murder in February 1933, when Sergeant Miller testified that Lang had received $15,000 to kill Nitti. Another member of the raiding party testified that Nitti was unarmed when shot by Lang. As a result, Lang and Miller were fired and fined $100 each for “simple assault.” Cermak was shot within days of that verdict’s return. Miami prosecutors portrayed Giuseppe Zangara as a delusional immigrant and quasi-anarchist who blamed chronic stomach pain on wealthy public figures. FDR was named as his primary target, though he also appeared to despise Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover. Gossip columnist Walter Winchell, coincidentally present at the Miami shooting scene, later surmised that Cermak was Zangara’s primary target, marked for death after “offending” Chicago mobsters. The usual twist to that story paints Cermak as a martyred reformer, but if gangsters were involved, retaliation for the attempted police assassination of Frank Nitti seems a more likely motive. Cermak’s gangland ally, Roger Touhy, was indicted for kidnapping Missouri brewer William Hamm in August 1933, but jurors acquitted him three months later and the blame for that abduction was later (rightly) placed on the Barker– Karpis outlaw gang. FBI agents arrested Touhy again in December 1933, this time for the faked kidnapping of Chicago felon Jacob Factor. Convicted on that charge and sentenced to 99 years, Touhy was freed in 1959 after a federal judge determined that Factor was never kidnapped. The case was a frame-up concocted by Nitti and company, with aid from corrupt prosecutors. Soon after his release, Touhy was gunned down in Chicago. His dying words: “The bastards never forget.” Cermak’s daughter, Helena, married Otto Kerner Jr., who served as governor of Illinois from 1961 to 1968, then as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Kerner resigned that position in July 1974, following his conviction on 17 counts of bribery, conspiracy, perjury, and other charges. He received a three-year prison term but was released early upon diagnosis of terminal cancer and died in Chicago on May 9, 1976. The controversy surrounding Cermak’s death makes it a natural subject for fiction and drama. The first effort, a film billed as an “imaginative biography” of Cermak, was hastily released on June 30, 1933, casting the mayor as an

85

86

CERMAK, ANTON JOSEPH

FRANK “THE ENFORCER” NITTI (1886–1943) Born Francesco Raffaele Nitto in Angri, Italy, Chicago’s future mob boss emigrated to New York with his family at age seven. He quit school after seventh grade and worked as a barber in Brooklyn until he moved west in 1913. The onset of Prohibition in 1920 found him allied with John Torrio and Al Capone, rising through syndicate ranks as each boss in turn was convicted on federal charges. Nitti suffered his own tax-evasion conviction in 1931, but received an 18-month sentence, compared to Capone’s 11 years, retaining power as a major figure in the national crime syndicate. In 1943, he was indicted, with other Chicago gang leaders, on charges of extorting millions from the motion picture industry through labor racketeering. Police found him shot to death in a Chicago railyard on March 19, 1943, and ruled his fate a suicide, speculating that the prospect of a second prison term left Nitti panicked and depressed. However, local gambler George Redston claimed he saw Nitti in custody of two Chicago detectives shortly before his body was found, suggesting the possibility that police succeeded in killing him on their second attempt, where Detectives Lang and Miller failed in 1932. Ever popular on television and in films, Nitti has been portrayed at various times by actors Bruce Gordon in The Untouchables (1959–1963); Harold J. Stone in The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967); Sylvester Stallone in Capone (1975); Billy Drago in The Untouchables (1987); Anthony LaPaglia in Nitti: The Enforcer (1988); Paul Regina in The Untouchables (1993); Stanley Tucci in Road to Perdition (2002); and Billy Camp in Public Enemies (2009).

inadvertent hero for saving FDR. Cermak also got the hero treatment in a twopart episode of The Untouchables, aired on February 25 and March 3, 1960, then recycled later that same year as a full-length TV movie, The Gun of Zangara. Cermak’s rise to power was portrayed in Jeffrey Archer’s novel Kane and Abel (1979), and best-selling mystery author Max Allan Collins “solved” the case four years later, blaming Frank Nitti in True Detective (1983). Unexpectedly, Cermak’s murder also inspired a November 1998 episode of the science fiction TV series, Babylon 5, titled “Objects in Motion.” Further Reading Allsop, Kenneth. The Bootleggers: The Story of Prohibition. New York: Arlington House, 1970. Bergreen, Laurence. Capone: The Man and the Era. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Gottfried, Alex. Boss Cermak of Chicago: A Study of Political Leadership. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.

“CHAI N MU RDERS” ( I R AN )

Humble, Ronald. Frank Nitti: The True Story of Chicago’s Notorious Enforcer. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2008. Lindberg, Richard. To Serve and Collect: Chicago Politics and Police Corruption from the Lager Beer Riot to the Summerdale Scandal, 1855–1960. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998. Russo, Gus. The Outfit: The Role of Chicago’s Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America. New York: Bloomsbury, 2001.

“CHAIN MURDERS” (IRAN) (1979–1998) The term “chain murders” is applied to a series of Iranian homicides and disappearances, in which all victims were dissident intellectuals publicly critical of the Islamic Republic established in February 1979. Slayings were not restricted to Iran, but included attacks throughout Europe and North America. Although no official tally is available, estimates of the final death toll range from “dozens” to 107. Recognized victims include: • Prince Shahryar Shafiq, son of the exiled shah’s twin sister, gunned down in Paris on December 7, 1979. • Ali Akbar Tabatabaei, former press attaché to Iran’s U.S. embassy, killed at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, on July 22, 1980. Suspect Dawud Salahuddin, reportedly paid $5,000 for that killing, escaped to Iran on July 31. He confessed the murder in a 1996 televised interview, calling it “an act of war.” • Shahrokh Missaqi, supporter of the People’s Feda’ii exiled to the Philippines, stabbed in Manila on January 14, 1982. • Ahmad Zolanvar, a member of the dissident Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization (MIRO), fatally beaten in Karachi, Pakistan, on August 29, 1982. He died on September 5. • Abdol-Amir Rahdar, a leader of student opposition to the Islamic Republic, hacked to death with machetes in Bangalore, India, on September 10, 1982. • MIRO supporter Esfandiar Rahimi Taqanaki, killed with machetes in Manila, on February 8, 1983. • General Gholam-Ali Oveissi, military governor of Tehran under the shah, killed with his brother Gholam-Hossein in Paris, on February 7, 1984. • Behrouz Shahvardilou, a police colonel under the shah, killed in Istanbul on January 6, 1985. • Mir Monavat, exiled politician from Balochistan Province, shot by three men at his home in Karachi, Pakistan, on September 28, 1985. • Ex-colonel Aziz Moradi, killed in Istanbul on December 23, 1985.

87

88

“CHAI N MU RDERS” ( I R AN )

• Ahmad Madani, the shah’s former defense minister, poisoned with a gift of candy in Paris on January 1, 1986. • Ahmadhamed Monfared, another ex-colonel, shot in Turkey by two men with silenced pistols on October 24, 1986. • Vali Mohammad, a former marine officer under the shah, shot in Pakistan on November 12, 1986. • Ali Akbar Mohammadi, former pilot for Chairman of Parliament Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, killed by two gunmen in Hamburg, Germany, on January 16, 1987. • Hamid Reza Chitgar, First Secretary of Hezb Kaar (Labor Party), killed at an apartment in Vienna, Austria, on May 19, 1987, with his corpse found a week later. Suspect Ali Amiztab allegedly lured Chitgar from Paris to Vienna, after a two-year correspondence from Iran. • Alireza Hassanpour Sharifzadeh and Faramarz Aqa’i, killed at their homes in Karachi on July 8, 1987, in an attack with rocket launchers and machine guns that left 33 other persons wounded. Pakistani border guards detained nine members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as suspects. • Exiled dissident Mohammad Hassan Mansouri, killed with a companion at his home in Istanbul, by two gunmen, on July 25, 1987. • Ahmad Talebi, former fighter pilot in the shah’s air force, shot by two assassins in Geneva, Switzerland, on September 10, 1987. • Ali and Noureddin Nabavi Tavakoli, father and son royalists, shot in their London home on October 3, 1987. • Javad Ha’eri, stabbed by two men at his home in Istanbul on December 1, 1987. • Behrouz Bagheri, son of a general in the shah’s army, killed by a bomb at his shop in Paris on November 28, 1987. • Ata’ollah Bayahmadi, ex-colonel with military intelligence, killed in his Dubai hotel room on June 4, 1989. • Abdulrahman Ghassemlou, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), ambushed at a meeting with Iranian officials in Vienna, on July 13, 1989. Also killed in that shooting were KDPI members Abdollah Ghaderi, Fadal Mala, and Mamoud Rassoul. Austrian police released the suspects, then expelled them from the country. • Gholam Keshavarz, exiled member of the Worker-Communism Unity Party of Iran, killed in Cyprus in August 1989. • Bahman Javadi, a member of Komalah (a Kurdish political party), killed in an August 26, 1989, shooting in Cyprus that also wounded party member Youssef Rashidzadeh.

“CHAI N MU RDERS” ( I R AN )

• Komalah member Sadiq Kamangar, murdered at his office in Iraq on September 4, 1989. • Exiled royalist Hadj Balouch Khan, shot by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Taftan, Pakistan, on February 16, 1990. • Dr. Kazem Rajavi, Iran’s first ambassador to the United Nations after the 1979 revolution and elder brother of Massoud Rajavi, leader of the National Council of Resistance, killed in a village near Geneva, Switzerland, on April 24, 1990. • Ali Kashefpour, a member of the KDPI’s Central Committee, kidnapped in Turkey and tortured to death on July 15, 1990. • Effat Qazi, daughter of Kurdish dissident leader Gazi Mohammed, killed by a letter bomb addressed to her activist husband in Sweden, on September 6, 1990. • Political refugee Gholam Reza Nakhai, beaten to death in a Turkish hotel room on October 1, 1990. • Cyrus Elahi, a member of the opposition monarchist group Derafsh-e Kaviani (Flag of Freedom), shot at his home in Paris on October 23, 1990. • KDPI members Ahad Aqa and Khaled Hosseinpour, killed by a bomb planted at party headquarters in Iraq on January 1, 1991. • Abdolrahman Boroumand, executive committee member of the National Resistance Movement of Iran, stabbed on a Paris street, on April 8, 1991. • Dr. Shapour Bakhtiar, last prime minister under the shah and founder of the National Resistance Movement, stabbed to death in Paris with his secretary, Soroush Katibeh, on August 7, 1991. Killers Nasser Ghasemi Nejad and Gholam Hossein Shoorideh Shirazi escaped to Iran, and a third—Ali Vakili Rad—was captured in Switzerland, extradited to France, and sentenced to life imprisonment. • Saeed Yazdanpanah, member of the Revolutionary Union of Kurdish People, was fatally stabbed at his home in Iraq, on September 19, 1991, along with his secretary Cyrus Katibeh. • Nareh Rafi’zadeh, wife and sister-in-law of exiled royal intelligence agents, shot outside her home in New Jersey, on March 26, 1992. • Exiled dissident Seifollah Seimanpour, machine-gunned in Iraq on May 1, 1992. • KDPI member Shahpour Firouzi, shot with automatic weapons in Iraq on May 31, 1992. • Union of Iranian Communists member Kamran Mansour Moqadam, machine-gunned in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, on June 3, 1992.

89

90

“CHAI N MU RDERS” ( I R AN )

• MIRO member Ali-Akbar Ghorbani, kidnapped from his home in Istanbul on June 4, 1992, and tortured to death. Suspects in custody later confessed and led police to his grave. • Exiled singer Fereydoun Farrokhzad, beheaded at his home in Bonn, Germany, on August 8, 1992. The attackers also severed his tongue. • KDPI leader Dr. Sadeq Sharafkandi, shot with aides Homayoun Ardalan, Fattah Abdollahi, and Nouri Dehkordi at a Berlin restaurant on September 17, 1992. Two Iranians were convicted in April 1997, and the court issued an arrest warrant for Ali Fallahian, then Iran’s minister of intelligence. • Abbas Golizadeh, former bodyguard to the shah, kidnapped from home in Istanbul on December 26, 1992, and still missing, presumed dead. • MIRO member Gholam-Hossein Kazemi, ambushed and shot while driving between the group’s camps in Iraq, on January 21, 1993. • Heybatollah Narou’i and Delaviz Narou’i, exiled Narou’i tribal chiefs from Balochistan, killed at their home in Karachi, Pakistan, on March 9, 1993. • Mohammad Hossein Naghdi, spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, shot in Rome on March 16, 1993. • Mohammad Ghaderi, a former KDPI member, kidnapped from home in Kirshahir, Turkey, on August 25, 1993. His mutilated corpse was found 10 days later. • KDPI member Bahram Azadifar, shot at his home in Ankara on August 28, 1993, by two men disguised as Turkish police officers. • Hossein Barazandeh, an engineer and close aide of expatriate scholar Dr. Ali Shariati, reported missing after he left a Quran recitation session in Mashhad on January 3, 1995. His body was found the next day, with his death attributed to cardiac arrest, but colleagues believed he was poisoned. • Ahmad Khomeini, younger son of Iranian ruler Ayatollah Khomeini, pronounced dead from a heart attack on March 17, 1995, one month after publicly criticizing regime hardliners. Outside observers claim the ministry of intelligence killed him with cyanide. • MIRO members Effat Haddad and Fereshteh Esfandiari, shot in Baghdad on May 19, 1995. • Ahmad Mir Alaei, signatory of an open letter criticizing the Islamic Republic, reported missing en route to deliver a speech at the medical school in Isfahan, on October 24, 1995. An unknown caller canceled his appearance, and Alaei was found six hours later, another victim of “cardiac arrest.” • Javad Saffar and Jalal Mobinzadeh, kidnapped and killed in Mashhad, Iran, on January 1, 1996.

“CHAI N MU RDERS” ( I R AN )

• Sunni cleric Dr. Ahmad Sayyad, murdered and mutilated at Bandar-Abbas, Iran, on February 2, 1996. • MIRO members Abdul-Ali Muradi and Zahra Rajabi, shot in Istanbul on February 20, 1996. • Sunni cleric Molavi Abdul-Malek Mollahzadeh, shot at his Karachi home on March 4, 1996. • MIRO member Hamed Reza Rahmani, shot in Baghdad on March 7, 1996. • Exile Taher Rouhani, killed in Sulaymaniyah on March 13, 1996. • Kurdish exiles Taher Azizi, Hassan Ebrahimzadeh, Faramarz Keshavarz, and Osman Rahimi, shot in Erbil, Iraq, on March 18, 1996. • Novelist Ghazaleh Alizadeh, strangled at home in northern Iran on May 11, 1996, with her death initially ruled suicide. • Reza Mazlouman, deputy minister of education under the shah, shot at his apartment in Paris on May 28, 1996. • Sunni cleric Abdolaziz Kazemi, snatched from his office at the University of Sistan and Baluchestan on November 5, 1996, found shot to death outside Zahedan, Iran, two days later. • Sunni cleric Molla Mohammad Rabiei, killed with the injection of air bubbles to simulate a heart attack on November 30, 1996, in Kermanshah, Iran. • Opera singer Hossein Sarshar, tortured, then killed in a staged car accident at Abadan, Iran, on February 14, 1997. • Married former exiles Manouchehr Sanei and Firouzeh Kalantari, kidnapped from home in Tehran on February 17, 1997, found stabbed to death five days later. • Poet–scholar Hamid Hajizadeh, stabbed 38 times at his home in Kerman, Iran, on September 22, 1998. Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency broke the “chain murders” story on November 22, 1998, whereupon President Mohammad Khatami formed a committee to investigate. On January 4, 1999, the ministry of intelligence issued a statement blaming the murders on “a small number of irresponsible, misguided, headstrong and obstinate staff . . . who are no doubt under the influence of rogue undercover agents and acting toward the objectives of foreign and estranged sources when committing these criminal acts.” Alleged ringleader Saeed Emami died in prison on June 19, 1999. Regime critics were not satisfied with that conclusion. Further Reading Iran Watch Canada. http://moriab.blogspot.com/2006/11/these-are-people-who-have-_ 116460629705367011.html.

91

92

CHARLES VII OF SWEDEN

Sahimi, Muhammad. “The Chain Murders: Killing Intellectuals and Dissidents, 1988–1998.” Frontline. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/ 2011/01/the-chain-murders-killing-dissidents-and-intellectuals-1988–1998.html. “Victims of Serial Killings by the Information Ministry.” Middle East Left Forum. http:// www.iran-bulletin.org/witness/infominlist.html.

CHARLES VII OF SWEDEN (1130–1167) Murder was rife in the royal courts of 12th-century Sweden. King Charles VII was a prime suspect in the May 1160 assassination of rival monarch Eric IX, and his supposed accomplice in that killing—King Magnus II—was murdered the following year, propelling Charles onto the throne. Still, he contended with Knut Erikson for primacy in Sweden, and Erikson’s assassins overtook Charles on the island of Visingsö, in Lake Vättern, on April 12, 1167. His death continued the tradition of hostility between dynasties intent on ruling Sweden. Born Karl Sverkersson in southern Sweden’s Götaland region, circa 1130, Charles was the son of Sverker I, also called Sverker the Elder, who ruled as king from 1130 until his murder on December 25, 1156. Successor Magnus Henriksson was suspected of arranging Sverker’s death, and succeeded him on the throne. The rival House of Erik, meanwhile, coveted control of Sweden, was establishing its own monarchy north of Götaland, in Uppsala, under Erik Jedvardsson, also called Eric IX and Eric the Lawgiver. Eric ruled Uppsala from 1155 until his murder on May 18, 1160, presumably by agents of Magnus and Charles. The 1161 assassination of Magnus, in turn, was viewed by many Swedes as Charles’s belated vengeance for his father’s slaying five years earlier. If Charles believed the House of Erik had been neutralized with Eric IX’s removal, he was badly mistaken. Successor Knut Eriksson—better known to history as Canute I—continued the family’s struggle to unite and dominate Sweden. Though driven into exile following his father’s death, Canute returned in 1167 to assert authority and plot the death of Charles. With that accomplished, he faced opposition from Charles’s siblings Boleslaw (or Burislev) and Kol Sverkersson. Both claimed to be king, but any homicidal rivalry between them was forestalled by fear and hatred of Canute. Their fates are vague: historians suggest that Kol was “probably” assassinated by Canute’s men or killed in battle around 1170, and Boleslaw was either murdered or escaped to Poland three years later. The Sverker line would not produce another Swedish king until the rise of Sverker II, crowned in 1196 and slain at the Battle of Gestilren in July 1210. Canute, meanwhile, died peacefully from natural causes in 1195, with no sons old enough to claim his throne. Influential courtiers chose Birger Brosa to

CHILLINGWORTH, CURTIS EUGENE

succeed Canute as Sverker II. Canute’s four sons were exiled, but returned with Norse support in 1205 to face Sverker II in the Battle of Älgarås. All but Erik Knutsson died there, and he fled once again, but returned a second time with more Norwegians in 1208, defeating Sverker II at the Battle of Lena. Crowned Eric X thereafter, he disposed of Sverker once and for all two years later, at Gestilren. A sudden fever claimed his life in April 1216. Further Reading Kent, Neil. A Concise History of Sweden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Moberg, Vilhelm. A History of the Swedish People from Prehistory to the Renaissance. Vol. 1. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.

CHILLINGWORTH, CURTIS EUGENE (1896–1955) On the night of June 14, 1955, Judge Curtis Chillingworth and wife Marjorie dined with friends in West Palm Beach, Florida. They left for home at 10 P.M., saying that they expected a carpenter to come the next morning and build a playground for their grandchildren, at their home in Manalapan. When the carpenter arrived at 8 A.M. on June 15, he found their front door open and the house deserted. Judge Chillingworth missed a scheduled court hearing at 10 A.M., and police then visited his house. They found the porch light shattered, with a blood trail on a walkway to the nearby beach. Two rolls of adhesive tape were also found, one in the living room and one outside. Speculation of an accidental double-drowning was dismissed, and robbery was ruled out when investigators found $40 in Marjorie Chillingworth’s purse. Likewise, the judge’s car was still outside the house, with keys in the ignition. Two years later, with no solution in sight, a court pronounced the couple legally dead. Curtis Chillingworth was born on October 24, 1896. He graduated from the University of Florida in 1917 and was admitted to the state bar that same year, then entered the U.S. Naval Academy and served as an ensign aboard the cruiser USS Minneapolis for the duration of World War I. Upon discharge, he practiced law with his father in West Palm Beach, then was elected as a county judge in 1921. Two years later, he won election to the circuit court bench, a post he held for the remainder of his life, with a hiatus for recall to active military duty during World War II. Police were stymied on the Chillingworth case until 1959, when they heard that career criminal Floyd “Lucky” Holzapfel had bragged to a friend, James Yenzer, that he knew the persons responsible. Yenzer and policeman Jim Wilber lured Holzapfel to a Titusville hotel, plying him with liquor while detectives eavesdropped from an adjoining room. Over three drunken days, Holzapfel admitted “taking care of ” the Chillingworths, providing enough details to

93

94

CHINNICI, ROCCO

support his arrest on October 1, 1960. He pled guilty to double murder on December 12, 1960, and was sentenced to death (commuted to life imprisonment in 1966). Accomplice George “Bobby” Lincoln, who had helped abduct the victims, weight their bodies, and drop them at sea while still living, was already imprisoned on a 1958 moonshine conviction. Prosecutors granted him immunity from murder charges, in exchange for testimony against the double murder’s mastermind. That defendant was former West Palm Beach municipal judge Joseph Alexander Peel Jr., known for his association with local bootleggers and gamblers. His hatred of Chillingsworth dated from 1953, when Chillingworth censured Peel for representing both sides in a divorce case. A similar breach of ethics brought him back before Judge Chillingworth in 1955, resulting in a 90-day suspension. Furious, and fearing that Chillingworth might take steps to have him disbarred, Peel then arranged the killings to protect himself. Jurors convicted Peel as an accessory to murder on March 30, 1961, but spared him from the electric chair by recommending mercy. Sentenced to a double life term, he served 18 years in Florida, then was paroled in 1979 to begin an 18-year federal sentence resulting from an unrelated mail fraud conviction. Diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1982, Peel was released from custody and died after nine days of freedom. Bobby Lincoln completed his federal moonshining sentence in 1962 and vanished into obscurity. Further Reading Cole, Catherine, and Cynthia Young. True Crime: Florida. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2011. McIver, Stuart. Murder in the Tropics: The Florida Chronicles. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 1995.

CHINNICI, ROCCO (1925–1983) Friday, July 29, 1983, began routinely for Chief Prosecutor Rocco Chinnici in Palermo, Sicily. His driver waited outside Chinnici’s apartment house with two bodyguards, beside the prosecutor’s armored Alfa Romeo Alfetta. Chinnici left the building, speaking briefly to concierge Stefano Li Sacchi, and was turning toward his car when a small Fiat filled with explosives detonated at the curb. The blast killed Chinnici, Li Sacchi, and bodyguards Salvatore Bartolotta and Mario Trapassi, while wounding 40 others. Chinnici’s chauffeur, Giovanni Paparcuri, was partly shielded by the armored Alfa Romeo, but still suffered crippling injuries. Rocco Chinnici was born at Misilmeri, Sicily, on January 19, 1925, and earned his law degree from the University of Palermo in 1947. After five years in private practice, he was named to serve as a magistrate in Trapani, where the bulk

CHINNICI, ROCCO

of his criminal cases involved livestock rustling. In 1966, he transferred to the Palermo prosecutor’s office, confronting mafiosi for the first time with the Viale Lazio massacre of December 1969. Twenty-four defendants were suspected in that case, but none were finally convicted. Frustrated, Chinnici sought a way to crack the Mafia’s code of silence through use of informers. As he explained the plan, The Mafia is a way to practice politics by means of violence. . . . We live in a sick society that doesn’t recognize the proportions of the sickness, the gravity, the dimensions of the disease. . . . I don’t believe in Mafia bombers killed Sicilian prosecutor Rocco the repentance of the mafioso. Chinnici in July 1983. (Associated Press) The mafioso is a different character than the terrorist. The mafioso is an individual who always carries with him a bent for violence and crime. He doesn’t have a moral sense and therefore he can’t be repentant. However, there can be a mafioso who knows he has been sentenced to death by an enemy group. To escape the sentence, he desperately grabs hold of the only possible force that can protect him: the state and the justice that he has always despised. Justice is his last refuge. In that sense the mafioso can expect a lesser punishment if decides to collaborate with justice, provided, naturally, that his contribution is effective and valid. All the better, then, to have a law for repentant mafiosi. It won’t reward moral redemption for a collaboration dictated by terror. In the end it’s a useful way to fight the Mafia.

Promoted to chief prosecutor in 1979, upon the murder of predecessor Cesare Terranova, Chinnici organized the Antimafia Pool, a group of investigating magistrates that included Paolo Borsellino, Giuseppe Di Lello, Giovanni Falcone, and Leonardo Guarnotta. One of their leading targets was Michele Greco, head of the Sicilian Mafia Commission, known as “The Pope” for his ability to mediate feuds between rival mob bosses. Indicted with 14 other mafiosi on July 9, 1983, for the September 1982 murder of Carabinieri general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, Greco fled into hiding and plotted the eradication of his enemies. The bomb that killed Chinnici was triggered by Giuseppe

95

96

CHITUNDA, JEREMIAS K AL ANDUL A

“Pino” Greco, Michele’s nephew and enforcer, subsequently murdered in September 1985, while still a fugitive from justice. Police captured Michele Greco on February 20, 1986, in time for him to join 354 codefendants for a “Maxi Trial” in Palermo. He was convicted of ordering 78 murders, including Chinnici’s, and received a life prison term on December 16, 1987. An appellate court freed Greco on February 27, 1991, but his sentence was reinstated in February 1992. He died in prison, still claiming innocence, on February 13, 2008. Further Reading Jamiesen, Alison. The Antimafia: Italy’s Fight against Organized Crime. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. Orlando, Leoluca. Fighting the Mafia and Renewing Sicilian Culture. Jackson, TN: Encounter Books, 2003. Schneider, Jane, and Peter Schneider. Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Seindal, René. Mafia: Money and Politics in Sicily 1950–1997. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1998. Stille, Alexander. Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

CHITUNDA, JEREMIAS KALANDULA (1942–1992) In September 1992, after 17 years of warfare between the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the rival People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), Angola scheduled its first presidential election. MPLA candidate José Eduardo dos Santos received 49.57 percent of the vote, and UNITA standard-bearer Jonas Savimbi railed with 40.6 percent. Lacking a 51-percent majority for either candidate, prevailing law demanded a fresh round of voting, but the process collapsed with the “Halloween Massacre” of October 30–November 2, wherein MPLA forces slaughtered scores of UNITA supporters. One of those slain was UNITA vice president Jeremias Chitunda, killed in Luanda when UNITA gunmen stopped his convoy on November 2, summarily executing him with party officials Aliceres Mango and Elias Salupeto Pena. Their corpses were displayed on state-run television, but were not returned to their families for burial. Jeremias Chitunda was born in Chimbuelengue on February 20, 1942, and educated in a mission school at Bela Vista, before attending João de Castro College and Huambo National Secondary School. From there, he received a scholarship to the University of Arizona at Tucson, where he earned a degree in mining engineering. Returning to Angola in 1966, midway through his homeland’s war for liberation from Portugal, he joined the newly organized UNITA.

CLINTON, WILLIAM JEFFERSON

Fearing arrest by Portuguese authorities for revolutionary agitation, Chitunda subsequently fled to Zaire, then worked in the United States, soliciting aid for UNITA. Portuguese withdrawal in 1975 cleared the way for Chitunda’s return, but it brought no cessation of violence. Civil war erupted between UNITA and the MPLA before the end of 1975, soon involving Congolese, South African, and Cuban troops, as well as agents of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and their mercenaries. Chitunda was elected as UNITA’s vice president in 1986, at the party’s sixth national congress. José dos Santos, named as president by the MPLA’s Central Committee in September 1979, failed to suppress the fighting or prevent South African incursions, but his welcoming of troops from Cuba prompted U.S. conservatives to back UNITA with formation of a “Democratic International” opposing communist influence in Angola. To balance that campaign, the Soviet Union bankrolled MPLA rulers with an estimated $1 billion. President Ronald Reagan, in turn, furnished cash and weapons to UNITA until December 1988, with the United Nations dispatched a peacekeeping force to the troubled nation. The Bicesse Accords of May 1991 sought to demobilize 150,000 combatants, while merging 50,000 UNITA and MPLA troops into a cohesive Angolan Armed Forces, laying groundwork for the ultimately disastrous 1992 elections campaign. After the Halloween Massacre, UNITA forces rejected conventional politics and resumed their armed struggle against the MPLA, capturing provincial capitals Caxito, Huambo, M’banzaKongo, Ndalatando, and Uíge. The civil war continued, with brief occasional ceasefires, until government troops killed Jonas Savimbi on February 22, 2002. UNITA vice president António Dembo succeeded him, then died from diabetes nine days later. Paulo Lukamba, UNITA’s secretary general, announced an end to fighting on March 13 and signed a memorandum of understanding with the government on April 4, 2002. Further Reading Cohen, Herman. Intervening in Africa: Superpower Peacemaking in a Troubled Continent. London: Macmillan Press, 2000. Fish, Bruce, and Becky Fish. Angola, 1880 to the Present: Slavery, Exploitation, and Revolt. New York: Chelsea House, 2001. James, W. Martin III. Historical Dictionary of Angola. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2011. Weigert, Stephen. Angola: A Modern Military History, 1961–2002. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

CLINTON, WILLIAM JEFFERSON (1946– )— ATTEMPTED Public records include three supposed assassination attempts against President Bill Clinton during his eight years in office. The first occurred on September 12,

97

98

CLINTON, WILLIAM JEFFERSON

1994, when Maryland aircraft mechanic Frank Eugene Corder crashed a single-engine Cessna 150 onto the south lawn of the White House. The president and his family were away from home that day. Corder died on impact, the only casualty. No motive was advanced for the attack, and acquaintances of Corder claimed that he had never voiced antipathy toward Clinton personally, suggesting that the crash may have been a bungled publicity stunt. Background investigation revealed that Corder—twice divorced, and estranged from his third wife—had been arrested for theft in April 1993, and again for drug dealing in October 1993. He spent 90 days in a rehab facility on the latter charge, afterward suffering from depression and thoughts of suicide. On October 29, 1994, New Mexico native Francisco Martin Duran approached a fence overlooking the north lawn of the White House, firing 29 shots from a Chinese-made semiautomatic rifle toward a group of men dressed in business suits. President Clinton was not among them, but was inside the White House when the shooting occurred. Three tourists tackled Duran and disarmed him before Secret Service agents reached the scene. An ex-convict, previously incarcerated for aggravated assault with a vehicle while serving in the U.S. Army, Duran now faced charges including attempted murder of the president, four counts of assaulting a federal officer, illegal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, use of an assault weapon during a crime of violence, destruction of U.S. property, and interstate transportation of a firearm with intent to commit a felony. At trial in March 1995, Duran pled not guilty by reason of insanity, claiming that he had tried to save Earth by destroying an alien “mist,” linked to the umbilical cord of an extraterrestrial being hidden somewhere in Colorado. Prosecutors countered with a parade of 60 witnesses who testified that Duran hated the federal government in general, and Clinton in particular. Jurors found him sane and guilty, resulting in a 40-year sentence. The third attempt on Clinton’s life reportedly occurred in November 1996, during his visit to an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathering in Manila, although it was not publicized until 2009. During Clinton’s Manila visit, New York Times reporter David Sangar revealed that two terrorist bombs had been found and defused at proposed meeting sites—one at Manila’s airport, another at Subic Bay, a former U.S. Navy base where APEC members were slated to gather—but Sangar apparently knew nothing of a third device that narrowly missed Clinton himself. According to author/professor Ken Gormley, in his 2009 book The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr, the president’s motorcade was about to cross a bridge in downtown Manila when a Secret Service agent’s radio earpiece picked up a faint transmission including the words “bridge” and “wedding”—the latter recognized as a code word for assassination. Clinton’s car was diverted, and a bomb was found under the bridge, allegedly traced back to the terrorist group al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden.

COLLINS, MICHAEL, JR.

Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III, in Hope, Arkansas, on August 19, 1946. His father died in an auto accident before Clinton’s birth, and his mother later remarried, with Clinton assuming his stepfather’s surname. Scholarships enabled Clinton to attend Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he obtained a BS degree in 1968, followed by a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford, in England. Clinton entered Arkansas politics in 1974, losing a congressional race, then was elected as the state’s attorney general (1976) and as governor (1978). Defeated by gubernatorial challenger Frank White in 1980, Clinton rebounded to win a second term, unseating White in 1984—thereby securing a reputation as “the comeback kid.” Reelections as governor followed in 1986 and 1990. In 1992, Clinton defeated incumbent President George H. W. Bush, and successfully defended that office against challenger Bob Dole in 1996. Despite Clinton’s 1996 reelection by some eight million votes in a threeparty race (including independent candidate Ross Perot), his White House tenure was beset by bitter controversy and dissension. First Lady Hillary Clinton blamed a “vast right-wing conspiracy” for the attacks, and although extremist groups certainly played a role, fueled by flamboyant talk-show hosts, the president contributed to his own difficulties as private behavior turned public. In 1998, a Republican Congress led by Clinton foe (and presidential hopeful) Newt Gingrich of Georgia voted to impeach Clinton for testifying falsely under oath about a sexual affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The U.S. Senate acquitted Clinton in February 1999, and despite that sordid episode, he left Washington in January 2001 with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U.S. president since World War II. Subsequent public opinion polls rank him high among all former presidents, ranging from second to fourth in popularity. See also: bin Laden, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad (1957–2011).

Further Reading Gormley, Ken. The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr. New York: Crown, 2010. Malanowski, Jamie. “Did Osama Try to Kill Bill Clinton?” True/Slant. December 21, 2009. http://trueslant.com/jamiemalanowski/2009/12/21/did-osama-try-to-kill-bill-clinton. Summary Statement of Facts (the September 12, 1994 Plane Crash and the October 29, 1994 Shooting) Background Information on the White House Security Review. http:// prop1.org/park/pave/rev6.htm.

COLLINS, MICHAEL, JR. (1890–1922) On August 22, 1922, in the midst of Ireland’s civil war, Michael Collins— chairman of Southern Ireland’s provisional government and commander in chief of its National Army, led a military convoy into County Cork, seeking

99

100

COLLINS, MICHAEL, JR.

opponents from the Irish Republican Army (IRA; see sidebar). En route from Bandon to Cork, the column stopped at the village of Béalnam Bláth (“The Mouth of Flowers”) to ask directions, inadvertently receiving advice from Dinny Long, an IRA supporter. Long directed Collins and his men along a route guarded by hostile troops under Liam Deasy, an officer in the IRA’s 3rd Cork Brigade. When the ambush party opened fire at 8 P.M., Collins ordered his men to stop and return fire. The skirmish lasted 20 minutes, and Collins was the sole fatality, struck in the head by a rifle shot. Participants in the firefight later named the triggerman as Denis (“Sonny”) O’Neill, a former British army marksman turned IRA sniper. Michael Collins was born at Sam’s Cross, near Clonakilty, in West County Cork, on October 16, 1890. His father was a retired member of the Fenian Brotherhood, which opposed British rule of Ireland in the latter part of the 19th century. On his death bed, Michael Sr. reportedly predicted that his son would “do great work for Ireland.” At first, however, Michael Jr. seemed to serve the British. Leaving school at age 15, he worked for the Royal Mail from 1906 to 1910, then moved to London as a messenger for Horne and Company, a stockbroking firm. Unknown to his employers, though, he joined London’s Gaelic Athletic Association, and through it, the covert revolutionary Irish Republican Brotherhood. After a stint with J.P. Morgan & Company in New York, he returned to Ireland in time for the Easter Rising of April 1916. While that revolt failed to throw off British rule, landing Collins in custody at Frongoch internment camp in Wales, he escaped execution and was freed in December 1916, later joining in the Irish War of Independence that began on January 21, 1919. By then, he was a leading figure in Sinn Féin (“We Ourselves”), a nationalist party, and director of its paramilitary Irish Volunteers, created “to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland.” With the outbreak of war, that group expanded to become the IRA, battling British troops and the “Black-and-Tan” Royal Irish Constabulary. In December 1919, Britain’s House of Commons introduced a Better Government of Ireland Bill, proposing two Irish parliaments: one for the six northern counties of Ulster, and another for 26 southern counties of a proposed Irish Free State. That proposal of division split public opinion in Ireland, with strongest support drawn from Ulster’s Protestant majority. It also split the IRA, one faction willing to settle for partial victory, while the other opposed any treaty. With the war for independence still ongoing, the AntiTreaty IRA began attacks on treaty supporters in June 1922, touching off the Irish Civil War. As a defender of the existing provisional government, Michael Collins took the field against his former IRA comrades, and thus went to his death. Despite ongoing opposition, the treaty dividing Ireland was ratified in

COLLINS, MICHAEL, JR.

IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (IRA) Founded in 1919, the IRA was a descendant of the earlier Irish Republican Brotherhood, created in November 1913 and active in the Easter Rising of April 1916. The new organization, led by Michael Collins, waged guerrilla campaigns during the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921), then split with the ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty that severed Northern Ireland from the Irish Free State. Supporters of the treaty followed Collins into the Irish National Army, and opponents waged a losing civil war against their former comrades during 1922–1923. Thereafter, the IRA condemned both the Irish Free State and the loyalist government of Northern Ireland as tools of British imperialism. After flirting with communism under leader Moss Twomey, between 1926 and 1937, the IRA collaborated with Axis enemies of Great Britain during World War II, staging sabotage attacks in England. Chief Tony Magan led a “border campaign” against Northern Ireland from 1952 to 1962, then relative quiet ensued until 1969, when renewed militancy in Belfast brought another split between the official (or “old”) IRA (OIRA) and a new provisional IRA (PIRA). The OIRA abandoned armed struggle and focused on politics via its party, official Sinn Féin, known since 1982 as the Workers’ Party of Ireland. The PIRA remained committed to guerrilla warfare, as Northern Ireland’s “troubles” claimed at least 3,526 lives between 1969 and 2001. An official tabulation blamed republican groups for 2,057 of those deaths; loyalist paramilitaries claimed 1,019 victims, security forces killed 368, and unknown perpetrators slew 82. After announcement of a ceasefire in 2001, PIRA spokesman declared resumption of hostilities in April 2011, declaring that they had “now taken on the mantle of the mainstream IRA. We continue to do so under the name of the Irish Republican Army. We are the IRA.”

December 1922. It took another five months to conclude the civil war, but mayhem had become an ingrained habit, continuing with “troubles” spanning eight more decades. Ranked as one of Ireland’s greatest popular heroes, Michael Collins has been portrayed several times on screen and stage. Beloved Enemy, a 1936 feature film, cast Brian Aherne as “Dennis Riordan” in a fictionalized version of Collins’s life (including survival of the final ambush by IRA rivals). Collins had his real name restored for The Treaty, a 1991 film for television starring Brendan Gleeson and Michael Collins (1996), with Liam Neeson in the title role. The Cork Opera House commissioned a musical about Collins in 2005, staged for

101

102

COLLINS, MICHAEL, JR.

the first time in 2009. In the interim, playwright Mark Kenny penned Allegiance in 2006, depicting a meeting between Collins (played by Michael Fassbender) and Winston Churchill (portrayed by Mel Smith). Further Reading Coogan, Tim Pat. Michael Collins: The Man Who Made Ireland. Boulder, CO: Roberts Rinehart, 1996. Dwyer, T. Ryle. Michael Collins: The Man Who Won the War. Blackrock, Ireland: Mercier Press, 2009. Hittle, J.B.E. Michael Collins and the Anglo-Irish War: Britain’s Counterinsurgency Failure. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2011. MacKay, James. Michael Collins: A Life. Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1997. O’Connor, Frank. The Big Fellow: Michael Collins and the Irish Revolution. Dublin: Clonmore & Reynolds, 1965. O’Connor, Ulick. Michael Collins and the Troubles: The Struggle for Irish Freedom 1912–1922. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

D DANILO I, PRINCE OF MONTENEGRO (1826–1860) On August 13, 1860, while boarding a ship at Kotor, Montenegro, Prince Danilo I was shot and fatally wounded by Todor Kadic, ´ a chief of the Bjelopavlici ´ tribe. Danilo died the following day, and although Kadi´c refused to explain the killing, various theories were advanced. Some authors claim that Kadic´ was enraged by Danilo’s adulterous affair with Kadi c’´ s wife. Others claim he acted to avenge atrocities committed on his kinsmen by Danilo’s troops. Another theory claims that Austrian authorities recruited him to kill Danilo, fearing that the prince would forge an alliance with Russian czar Alexander II. The truth remains obscure. A native of Njeguši, born on June 29, 1871, Danilo was born into the House of Petrovic-Njegoš, ´ hereditary rulers of Montenegro from 1696 to 1918. In October 1851, with the death of vladika (prince-bishop) Petar II Petrovic-Njegoš, ´ the senate proclaimed Petar II’s elder brother, Pero Tomov Petrovic, ´ to succeed him. Danilo trumped that choice with popular appeal, having negotiated peace between the warring Crmnica and Katunjani tribes, thereby winning recognition from all Serb bratzvos (clans) except the contentious Bjelopavlici. ´ At the same time, he secured endorsement from Russian emperor Nicholas I and was ordained as vladika Danilo II in Vienna, Austria. Returning to Montenegro in 1852, Danilo accommodated senators by permitting Montenegro’s change to a secular principality, whereupon he became knyaz (prince) Danilo I. That same year, he declared war on the Ottoman Empire, which claimed jurisdiction over Montenegro. That struggle dragged on for seven years, ending in Montenegrin victory when Danilo’s elder brother, Grand Duke Mirko Petrovic-Njegoš, ´ routed a superior Turkish force at the Battle of Grahovac (April 28–May 1, 1858). That victory compensated for Montenegro’s defeat in the Crimean War of 1853–1856, achieving de facto independence from Turkey. Danilo sought to strengthen his position through alliance with France, negotiating payments of 200,000 francs per year from Napoleon III, but those overtures alienated Russia and troubled Austria, both longtime enemies of France. On the home front, Danilo ruled as a sometimes brutal autocrat, imposing heavy taxes and dispatching brother Mirko with orders “not only to slay all leaders but also to kill even the babies in cradles” among tribes that failed

104

DAOUD KHAN, MOHA M MED

to pay up. The Bjelopavlici ´ who had failed to back Danilo in the power play in 1851 were hardest hit. Such policies—and his outwitting of the senate’s plan to crown Pero Tomov Petrovic—raised ´ an army of domestic enemies, with senate president Ðordije ¯ Petrovic´ chief among them. A plot was organized to oust Danilo and replace him with exiled rival Stevan Perovic´ Cuca, but Danilo sent assassins to kill Cuca in Istanbul. He failed to reckon with the vengeful Bjelopavlici, ´ though, and thereby met his end. Nephew Nikola Mirkov Petrovic-Njegoš ´ succeeded Danilo as Prince Nicholas I, pursuing a series of administrative, educational, and military reforms. In 1900, he proclaimed himself Montenegro’s first (and only) king. Five years later, bowing to popular pressure, he granted the nation its first constitution. Deposed and exiled in 1918, Nicholas maintained his futile claim to the throne until his death, in Antibes, in March 1921. Further Reading Boehm, Christopher. Blood Revenge: The Enactment and Management of Conflict in Montenegro and Other Tribal Societies. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1984. Morrison, Kenneth. Montenegro: A Modern History. London: I.B. Tauris, 2009. Roberts, Elizabeth. Realm of the Black Mountain: A History of Montenegro. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007. Stevenson, Francis. A History of Montenegro. London: Jarrold & Sons, 1914.

DAOUD KHAN, MOHAMMED (1909–1978) On April 27, 1978, the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PPDA) joined military units in an uprising against President Mohammed Daoud Khan. An armored column attacked the ministry of defense and ministry of interior at noon, in downtown Kabul, followed by airborne rocket attacks on Daoud’s palace. Surrounded by the early hours of April 28, President Daoud faced demands for his surrender. Rather than submit, Daoud and his brother Naim burst from the palace, firing pistols, and were cut down in a storm of bullets. His death was not acknowledged; rather, the assassins claimed that Daoud had “resigned for health reasons.” Thirty years elapsed before discovery of two mass graves in Kabul’s District 12, Pul-e-Charkhi, on June 28, 2008. Diggers found 16 bodies in one pit, 12 in the other. On December 4, 2008, the Afghan health ministry reported that Daoud had been identified from dental records and a small golden Quran presented to him by King Khalid of Saudi Arabia. Daoud received a belated state funeral on March 17, 2009. The eldest son of Prince Mohammed Aziz Khan, nephew of King Mohammed Nadir Shah, Daoud was born in Kabul on July 18, 1909. He was 24 when an assassin killed his father in Berlin. A short time later, in November 1933,

DAOUD KHAN, MOHAMMED

President Mohammed Daoud Khan of Afghanistan, killed during a military coup. (Associated Press)

the king was also murdered, in Kabul. Daoud was thereafter tutored in politics by an uncle, Prince Hashim Khan, and studied in France. He served two terms as governor of the Eastern Province, in 1934–1935 and 1938–1939, with an intervening term as governor of Kandahar. In 1939, as a lieutenant general, he assumed command of the Kabul Army Corps, holding that post until his promotion to minister of defense (1946–1948), ambassador to France (1948), then minister of the interior (1949–1951). Back in uniform by 1951, he served as commander of the Central Forces in Kabul until September 1953, when he began a decade as prime minister. As prime minister, Daoud courted antagonism with his plan to reunite the Pashtun people (ethnic Afghans) of Pakistan with their ancestral homeland, a move that simultaneously angered Pakistan and worried non-Pashtun minorities in Afghanistan, such as the Tajiks and Uzbeks. Pakistan closed its borders with Afghanistan in 1961, damaging the Afghan economy and pushing Daoud’s regime into closer alliance with the Soviet Union as the country’s foremost trading partner. In 1962, armed with Russian tanks, planes, and artillery, Daoud invaded Pakistan’s Bajaur region, but was repulsed by superior forces. That crisis was defused with Daoud’s forced resignation in March 1963,

105

106

DELGADO CHALBAUD GÓMEZ, CARLOS

whereupon Pakistan reopened its border for trade. Daoud’s brother-in-law, King Mohammed Zahir Shah moved to prevent any future repetition of the problem in 1964, promulgating a new constitution that barred royal family members from Afghanistan’s Council of Ministers. Daoud bided his time, then deposed King Zahir in a bloodless coup on July 17, 1973. Instead of claiming title as the shah, however, he declared Afghanistan a republic, with himself as president. Where Zahir’s constitution provided for separation of powers and popular election of legislators, Daoud established the Loya Zirga (Grand Assembly), with most of its members appointed. By 1976, while promoting a proxy guerrilla war with Pakistan, Daoud faced a rising Islamic fundamentalist movement led by exiled clerics, aided openly by Pakistani prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. In 1978, Daoud began severing ties with the PPDA, and thereby sowed the seeds of revolution that destroyed him and his family. Afghan Air Force colonel Abdul Qadir Dagarwal ruled Afghanistan during the coup, from April 27 to 30, 1978, then was replaced by Nur Muhammad Taraki, chairman of the PPDA’s Revolutionary Council. Taraki was assassinated on September 14, 1979, by order of successor Hafizullah Amin, who was in turn killed three months later, as Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan. Further Reading Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. Little America: The War within the War for Afghanistan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. Ewans, Sir Marti. Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics. New York: Harper Perennial, 2002. Feifer, Gregory. The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Freedman, Lawrence. A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East. New York: Public Affairs, 2008.

DELGADO CHALBAUD GÓMEZ, CARLOS (1909–1950) Venezuelan president Carlos Delgado Chalbaud left home for his office as usual on November 13, 1950, but he was stopped en route by several carloads of gunmen, some 20 in all. The attackers drove Delgado, an aide, and his chauffeur to an abandoned house, where, as authorities later explained, the president was “brutally slugged” and shot at least six times. His aide was also wounded but survived, and the chauffeur was left unharmed. Agents of Venezuela’s National Security Directorate tracked ringleader Rafael Simon Urbina to the Nicaraguan embassy, where he had taken refuge, and arrested him, reporting on November 14 that he had been shot dead in a “scuffle with a prison guard.” A second suspect died in custody on November 16, sparking rumors of conspiracy and

DELGADO CHALBAUD GÓMEZ, CARLOS

cover-up by Venezuela’s ruling military junta. By November 24, police had captured 28 suspects, 23 of whom were formally indicted on March 27, 1951. A native of Caracas, born on January 20, 1909, Carlos Delgado Chalbaud fled to Paris with his family at age four, when dictator Juan Vicente Gómez imprisoned his father. Released in 1927, Roman Chalbaud joined his wife and children in Paris, plotting with other Venezuelan exiles to depose Gómez. Carlos joined in an abortive invasion, on August 11, 1929, but his father died in battle and Delgado retreated to Paris, where he earned a degree in engineering and married a Romanian communist. President Gómez died in December 1935, and Delgado returned to Venezuela after completing studied at the School of War of Versailles. He joined the Military Engineering Service in 1938, and advanced to command of an engineering battalion in 1941. Four years later, in October 1945, Delgado joined in a coup d’état that deposed President Isaías Medina Angarita, emerging as a member of the sevenman military junta ruling Venezuela under leader Rómulo Betancourt Bello. Successor Rómulo Gallegos Freire retained Delgado as minister of defense in February 1948, but Delgado was unsatisfied. He led another coup nine months later, on November 24, unseating Gallegos and naming himself president of a new three-man junta, with Marcos Pérez Jiménez and Luis Llovera Páez. Early in 1950, Delgado opened dialogue with various opponents of his military regime, ostensibly seeking an accord between the army and various political parties to permit open elections. The move may have troubled his co-rulers in Caracas. Although they blamed Delgado’s kidnapping and “accidental” murder on rebels led by Rafael Urbina and his nephew Domingo, some observers named Marcos Pérez Jiménez as the mastermind of the assassination. Others countered that assertion by noting that Pérez was married to a cousin of Delgado, suggesting that the family association would have ruled out a conspiracy. In any case, Pérez ruled Venezuela’s junta until December 1952, when he took office as provisional president. Officially inaugurated as president in April 1953, he held that post until January 1958, when he was succeeded by Rómulo Betancourt (subsequently dubbed “The Father of Venezuelan Democracy”). Pérez fled to the United States in 1959, accused of embezzling some $200 million. He fought extradition until 1963, then was convicted, his prison term commuted to exile in Spain. Venezuela’s voters elected him to a senate seat in 1968, but his would-be colleagues swiftly passed a law excluding convicted felons from public office. Pérez remained in Spain and died there in 2001, at age 87. Further Reading Scheina, Robert. Latin America’s Wars Volume II: The Age of the Professional Soldier, 1900–2001. Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, Inc., 2003.

107

108

DELIGIANNIS, THEODOROS

Tarver, H. Michael, and Julia Frederick. The History of Venezuela. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. Trinkunas, Harold. Crafting Civilian Control of the Military in Venezuela: A Comparative Perspective. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.

DELIGIANNIS, THEODOROS (1820–1905) At 5:00 P.M. on June 13, 1905, Prime Minister Theodoros Deligiannis arrived by carriage at the Greek Chamber of Deputies in Athens. An unfamiliar man approached the vehicle, saluted Deligiannis, and opened his door. As Deligiannis thanked the man, his greeter pulled a long knife from beneath his coat and plunged it into the prime minister’s abdomen. Police swarmed the assailant and disarmed him, and aides took Deligiannis to a nearby Red Cross station, but attempts to stop his bleeding proved futile and he died at 7:30 P.M. A lynch mob gathered, bent on hanging the assassin, but police secured him in prison. Identified as a professional gambler named Gherakaris, the attacker confessed to slaying Deligiannis in retaliation for passage of a recent anti-gaming statute. Theodoros Deligiannis was born at Lagkadia, a mountain village in northwestern Arcadia, on January 2, 1820. He studied law in Athens, and in 1843 joined the ministry of the interior, advancing by 1859 to the post of permanent secretary. Three years later, King Otto appointed him minister of foreign affairs. That led to a Parisian posting in 1867, and Deligiannis allied himself with Alexandros Koumoundouros, founder (in 1865) of the Nationalist Party. Their chief opponent was Charilaos Trikoupis, publisher of the anti-royalist newspaper Who’s to Blame? and founder (in 1873) of the liberal New Party. Constantly at odds, Koumoundouros and Trikoupis served alternating terms as prime minister from 1875 to 1882. When Koumoundouros resigned in February 1883, Deligiannis claimed leadership of the National Party, declaring himself “against everything Trikoupis was for.” A champion of nationalism and Greek territorial expansion, he capitalized on unfolding military events and economic crises to win office as prime minister in May 1885. The seesaw struggle for control of government continued. Dimitrios Valvis briefly succeeded Deligiannis in May 1886, before Trikoupis took office once more. Deligiannis recaptured the office in November 1890, then was voted out again in March 1892. He served a third term between June 1895 and April 1897, then returned for his fourth—and last—on December 6, 1902. He is remembered today for grandiose schemes—threatening Turkey over boundary disputes in 1885, declaring war in 1897, building up Greek military forces to the point that worried neighbor nations mounted blockades at Piraeus and other ports to prevent importation of arms—but he never seemed to grasp the need for balance between aspiration and economy. Intensely controversial, nearly bankrupt at his death, he left two nieces who resided with him destitute, until his party voted pensions to support them.

DESSALINES, JEAN-JACQUES

Dimitrios Rallis succeeded Deligiannis, serving six months as prime minister before the New Party regained control in Athens, under Georgios Theotokis. Rallis bounced back for another term in July 1909, but was deposed a month later by a coup d’état that established control by a Military League, composed of 1,300 soldiers furious and mortified by Greek defeats since 1895. Further Reading Clogg, Richard. A Concise History of Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Keridis, Dimitris. Historical Dictionary of Modern Greece. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009. Woodhouse, C. M. Modern Greece: A Short History. Chatham, United Kingdom: Mackays, 1998.

DESSALINES, JEAN-JACQUES (1758–1806) On October 17, 1806, while leading troops to fight a band of rebels, Haitian dictator Jean-Jacques Dessalines—self-styled emperor Jacques I—was killed at Pont Larnage (now Pont-Rouge), north of Port-au-Prince. Several contradictory accounts describe his death, one claiming he was lured to the home of successor Alexandre Sabès Pétion and murdered there, whereas another says he was ambushed on the road and shot. A third version says Dessalines was arrested and beaten to death by his captors. A fourth claims he was hacked and stabbed to death by his own mutinous soldiers, after which a peasant mob dismembered his corpse and dumped the remains in Government Square. As with his death, the birth of Jean-Jacques Dessalines is subject to dispute. Some biographers contend that he was born in Africa, transported as a slave to French-owned Saint-Domingue; others insist he was born on the island to enslaved parents, on September 20, 1758. Known in his youth as Jean-Jacques Duclos, a name ostensibly adopted by his father from their mutual owner, Duclos/ Dessaline spent his early life on a plantation near Grande-Rivière-du-Nord. Rising to the rank of foreman on the Duclos plantation by age 30, he was then purchased by a free black man named Dessalines, and adopted his new master’s surname. Three years later, in 1791, Dessalines joined in the slave rebellion led by Georges Biassou and Jean-François Papillon at Plaine du Nord, the first uprising in what soon became the Haitian Revolution. He soon met rebel military commander Toussaint Bréda, later called Toussaint Louverture, and allied with Spanish forces from neighboring Hispaniola against the French. When France abolished slavery in May 1794, Louverture shifted allegiance to the French Republic, battling Spain and Britain. Biassou and Papillon opposed him, but Dessalines fought with Louverture, attaining the rank of brigadier general in his army by 1799. In 1801, he crushed an insurrection by Louverture’s own nephew and second-in-command, General Moyse, earning a reputation as a

109

110

D E S S A L I N E S, J E A N -J AC Q U E S

warrior who granted his enemies no quarter. That March, Toussaint convened a constitutional assembly, and by July had forged a document that made him president for life, while reaffirming loyalty to France. In Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte felt pressure to restore slavery in SaintDomingue. In December 1801, he sent his brother-in-law, General Charles Leclerc, to restore French control on the island. Leclerc arrived with 40,000 troops in February 1802, arrested Louverture in May, and shipped him back to France, where he later died in prison. Yellow fever killed Leclerc in November, leaving Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau, in command of French forces. Dessalines defeated Rochambeau in November 1803, at Vertières, and Napoleon’s army surrendered on December 4. Dessalines declared Saint-Domingue—now Haiti—an independent nation on January 1, 1804. The following month, he launched a campaign to eradicate the island’s white minority, killing at least 3,000 persons (some accounts say 5,000, including 1,700 whites and various loyal servants) by April 22, when the campaign ceased. On September 22, Dessalines named himself as emperor, with his official coronation occurring at Cap-Français on October 6. A constitution, published on May 20, 1805, established him as emperor for life with the right to name his successor. Under Dessalines’s reign, whites were forbidden to own property, and a harsh regimen of caporalisme agraire (agrarian militarism) was imposed, requiring that all black males work either as soldiers or plantation laborers. Dessalines also retained strict control of foreign trade, specifically export of sugar and coffee, favoring British and American buyers over French. Dissension simmered until 1806, when conspirators Alexandre Pétion and Henri Christophe succeeded in eliminating Dessalines. After the assassination, Pétion and Christophe suffered a falling out. Both hoped to rule in the late emperor’s place, resulting in the division of Haiti in 1810. Pétion ruled the southern Republic of Haiti as president (transformed to president for life in 1816), and Christophe proclaimed himself king of the northern kingdom of Haiti. Pétion suspended his realm’s legislature in 1818, while seizing plantations from the landed gentry and granting parcels to peasants, a tactic that earned him the label Papa Bon-Cœur (“Good-hearted Father”). Pétion died from yellow fever in March 1818, succeeded by president for life Jean-Pierre Boyer, and King Christophe committed suicide in October 1820. Haiti was reunified that same month, with full independence recognized by France in 1825. Although widely reviled in life for his despotic rule, Jean-Jacques Dessalines was “rehabilitated” in the early 20th century, emerging as a national icon. The city of Dessalines is named in his honor, as is Haiti’s national anthem, La Dessalinienne (The Dessalines Song). His great-grandson, Cincinnatus Leconte, ruled briefly as president from August 1911 to August 1912.

DEVI, PHOOLAN

Further Reading Dubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. Girard, Philippe. Haiti: The Tumultuous History—From Pearl of the Caribbean to Broken Nation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Girard, Philippe. The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian War of Independence 1801–1804. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2011. Nicholls, David. From Dessalines to Duvalier: Race, Colour and National Independence in Haiti. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996. Popkin, Jeremy. You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

DEVI, PHOOLAN (1963–2001) On July 25, 2001, three gunmen lay in wait outside a home on Ashoka Road in New Delhi, India. Their target was Phoolan Devi, a notorious former outlaw, serving since 1996 as a member of the Lok Sabha (House of the People, the lower house of India’s parliament). As her car arrived, the shooters opened fire, killing Devi and wounding Balender Singh before escaping in an auto-rickshaw. Suspect Sher Singh Rana later surrendered in Dehradun and confessed his role in the slaying, claiming he acted to avenge 22 fellow clan members killed by Devi’s former gang of outlaws at Behmai, in 1981. Phoolan Devi was born on August 10, 1963, in the Jalaun district of Uttar Pradesh, a member of India’s mallah (boatmen) caste. Forced into marriage at age 11, to a man of “very bad character,” she suffered incessant domestic abuse while pursuing a financial quarrel with a cousin who dominated her family. He accused her of theft at age 16, and she spent three days in jail, reportedly beaten and gang-raped by po- Bandit Queen Phoolan Devi, killed while serving lice. Later that same year, 1979, in India’s parliament. (AFP/Getty Images)

111

112

DEVI, PHOOL AN

she joined a gang of dacoits (bandits) and married its leader, Vikram Mallah. The band soon raided her ex-husband’s home and left him near death, with a letter threatening other men who married young girls. From that point, Devi joined enthusiastically in bandit raids across Uttar Pradesh and neighboring Madhya Pradesh, robbing trains, looting high-caste villages, and kidnapping wealthy victims for ransom. Over time, a rift developed between gang members of the mallah caste and rival Thakur Rajputs, considered divine by some elements of Indian society. In September 1979, Thakar brothers Shri and Lala Ram killed Vikram Mallah, seized control of the gang, and left Devi at Behmai, where she endured three weeks of rape and torture by their fellow clansmen. Upon escaping, she built a new gang and set off on a quest for revenge, pursing Shri and Lala Ram while killing any other men she met along the way, suspected of abusing women or children. “Whenever I heard of it,” Devi explained, “I crushed the serpent they used to torture women. I dismembered them.” On February 14, 1981, Devi returned to Behmai with her gang, disguised as police; the gang executed 22 Thakur men and looted the village. She eluded police for two years, forcing the resignation of Vishwanath Singh, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, then surrendered in February 1983 on condition that she would not face execution. Charged with 48 criminal counts, Devi spent 11 years in jail awaiting trial; she was released in 1994, when Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav dismissed all charges. A film released that same year, Bandit Queen, dramatized Devi’s life and elevated her to folk hero status, although she protested its inaccuracies and even threatened suicide until producers paid her £40,000. In 1996, Devi won election to the Lok Sabha from Mirzapur, in Uttar Pradesh, as a member of the Bharatiya Janata (Indian People’s) Party, vowing to “protect the weaker sections” of society. Her candidacy and successful reelection bid in 1999 were bitterly opposed by widows of the Behmai massacre, and on a broader scale by the Kshatriya Swabhimaan Andolan Samanvay Committee (KSASC), representing the military and ruling elite of the Vedic-Hindu social system. Ostensibly repulsed by the election of a once-indicted felon, the KSASC also opposed Devi’s commitment to providing drinking water, electricity, schools, and hospitals to the poor, further exacerbated by her stand on equal rights and opportunities for women. The course of justice for Devi’s killers has been as slow and tortuous as her own prosecution for the Behmai massacre (still officially unsolved at this writing, with a score of suspects awaiting trial). Sher Singh Rana escaped from jail on February 17, 2004, with aid from an accomplice dressed as a policeman, and was not recaptured until April 20, 2006. Another suspect in Devi’s assassination, Shravan Kumar, was not arrested until July 2004. Their longdelayed trial was transferred to a “fast track court” in January 2009, but was still ongoing three years later. On January 24, 2012, Sher Singh Rana received

Ð I N Ð I C´ , Z O R A N

official permission to campaign from his jail cell, for a seat in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly. Further Reading Devi, Phoolan. The Bandit Queen of India. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2006. Sen, Mala. India’s Bandit Queen: The True Story of Phoolan Devi. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. Shears, Richard, and Isobelle Gidley. Devi: The Bandit Queen. London: Allen & Unwin, 1984.

Ð I N Ð I C’ , Z O R A N ( 1 9 5 2 – 2 0 0 3 ) Serbian prime minister Zoran Ðindi ¯ c´ had official business to perform on March 12, 2003, specifically a meeting with Anna Lindh, Sweden’s minister of foreign affairs, and colleague Jan Karlsson, minister for development cooperation, migration, and asylum policy. Despite an attempt on his life three weeks earlier, Ðindi ¯ c´ chose to walk from his home in Belgrade to the National Assembly building, accompanied only by bodyguard Milan Veruovic. ´ At 12:23 P.M., Zvezdan Jovanovic—a ´ police lieutenant colonel and ex-member of the Serbian army’s “Red Beret” Special Operations Unit—fired on the pair with a sniper’s rifle from a window 195 yards distant. Ðindi ¯ c´ died an hour later, at a local hospital, and Veruovic´ survived his stomach wound. Arrested on March 25, Jovanovic´ admitted killing Ðindi ¯ c, ´ describing his victim as a “traitor to Serbia.” A native of Bosanskišamac, Yugoslavia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina), born on August 1, 1952, Zoran Ðindi ¯ c´ traveled widely with his family, due to his father’s assignments as an officer in the Yugoslav People’s Army. Finally settled in the capital, he earned a degree in philosophy from the University of Belgrade in 1974. Already drawn to politics, he was convicted for his role in organizing an independent (noncommunist) student’s movement. Chancellor Willy Brandy persuaded Yugoslavian authorities to release Ðindi ¯ c´ and permit his emigration to West Germany, where he continued his studies and earned a PhD in philosophy from the University of Konstanz in 1979. Ðindi ¯ c´ returned to Yugoslavia a decade later, to accept a teaching post at the University of Novi Sad, and in December 1989 participated in the foundation of the Democratic Party. He was elected to parliament in 1990, then served as Belgrade’s first noncommunist mayor of the postwar era, from February to September 1997. Democrats, with Ðindi ¯ c´ as their president, boycotted that year’s presidential election, watching from the sidelines as Yugoslavia disintegrated under President Slobodan Miloševic. ´ Named by Time magazine in 1999 as one of Europe’s most important politicians, Ðindi ¯ c´ was photographed shaking hands with U.S. president Bill Clinton while NATO forces bombed his homeland. Ðindi ¯ c´ was jailed and tried in secret that July on charges of “endangering state security.”

113

114

Ð I N Ð I C´ , Z O R A N

Meanwhile, nearly lost in the region’s nightmare of civil war and “ethnic cleansing,” Yugoslavia suffered a series of assassinations: Defense Minister Pavle Bulatovic´ on February 7, 2000; Socialist Party officer Žika Petrovic´ on April 26, 2000; and ex-president Ivan Stambolic´ on August 25, 2000. Those deaths and others were later blamed on Red Berets, acting in concert with the Zemun Clan, a Belgrade organized-crime family. Ðindi ¯ c´ played a leading role in the so-called “Bulldozer Revolution” that unseated President Miloševic´ in October 2000, and thereafter he was chosen as prime minister, assuming office on January 25, 2001. He advocated pro-democratic reforms and opposed civic corruption, a stance that placed him at odds with the Zemun Clan and their Red Beret allies. On February 7, 2003, Zemun Clan member Dejan Milenkovic´ tried to ram Ðindi´ ¯ c’s car with a truck in New Belgrade, but Ðindi ¯ c´ escaped injury. A friendly judge released Milenkovic, ´ explaining that he was a “salesman” whose absence imperiled his business. Serbian police continued their hunt for conspirators after Zvezdan Jovanovic´ confessed to shooting Ðindi ¯ c. ´ On March 27, 2003, officers killed Zemu Clan members Dusan Spasojevic and Mile Lukovic in a Belgrade suburb, during a fierce shootout with automatic weapons. Roughly 1,000 other suspects were detained, including Red Berets and members of Serbia’s secret police. Suspicion quickly focused on Red Beret ex-commander Milorad Ulemek, alleged ringleader of the plots to kill Ðindi ¯ c´ and Ivan Stambolic, ´ as well as a bungled attempt to slay Serb opposition leader Vuk Draškovic´ in October 1999 and June 2000. Suspect Aleksandar Simovic´ was not apprehended until November 2006. Finally, on May 23, 2007, Belgrade's High Court Special Department for Criminal Acts of Organised Crime convicted Ulemek, Simovic, ´ and 10 other defendants on charges of murdering Ðindi´ ¯ c. Ulemek and Zvezdan Jovanovic´ received 40-year prison terms, and the others—including five still at large, tried in absentia—drew sentences ranging from 8 to 35 years. Anna Lindh, the Swedish minister of foreign affairs (and presumed future prime minister), was herself assassinated on September 10, 2003, by an attacker who stabbed her repeatedly as she shopped, unprotected, in the ladies’ department of Stockholm’s Nordiska Kompaniet department store. Her slaying—like that of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme in 1986—remains officially unsolved. Further Reading Cox, John. The History of Serbia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002. Gagnon, V. P. Jr. The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. Judah, Tim. The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.

DOE, SAMUEL KANYON

Stojanovic´, Svetozar. Serbia: The Democratic Revolution. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2003.

DOE, SAMUEL KANYON (1951–1990) On September 9, 1990, in the midst of an apparent losing battle against rebel forces bent on toppling his government, Liberian president Samuel Doe visited leaders of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. Guerrillas led by rival Prince Yormie Johnson raided the meeting and captured Doe, dragging him off to a site where he was tortured prior to execution. Johnson later denied participation in the murder, but a videotape of the event—broadcast worldwide in the wake of Doe’s assassination—showed Johnson sipping from a can of beer while soldiers severed the president’s ear. Johnson briefly claimed the presidency after killing Doe, then fled to Nigeria when fellow rebel leader Charles Taylor emerged as the nation’s dominant strongman. Born at Tuzon, on May 6, 1951, Samuel Doe was a member of the Krahn tribe, one of several indigenous groups that had been dominated by AmericoLiberian rulers since Liberia was founded in 1847, as a “homeland” for American ex-slaves and free-born blacks. Dissatisfaction with that system prompted Doe—a master sergeant in the army—to lead a coup d’état against President William R. Tolbert Jr., on April 12, 1980. Establishing himself as Liberia’s first indigenous leader—Chairman of the People’s Redemption Council—Doe inaugurated a reign of terror against his opponents. Within days, he jailed 91 True Whig Party members, publicly executing 13 on charges of “high treason, rampant corruption and gross violation of human rights.” Hundreds more fled the country, rather than face trial without legal representation before a court-martial. He suspended Liberia’s constitution, then sought to legitimize his regime by promulgating a new one in 1984, promising free elections the following year. That fraudulent contest, condemned by observers from various other nations, climaxed with Doe’s election as president. Inaugurated on January 6, 1986, he continued on a path of corruption and cronyism favoring fellow Krahn tribesmen, which bred dissatisfaction both at home and overseas. Civil war erupted when Charles Taylor—disgruntled over his dismissal from Doe’s government on charges of embezzlement—raised an army of ethnic Gios and Manos in Côte d’Ivoire, operating as the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, and invaded Nimba County on December 24, 1989. Doe’s army retaliated with a scorched-earth campaign against the county’s population, further inflaming his opposition. By September 1990, Doe controlled only a small part of Liberia, centered around the capital, and that hold was demolished by his death. Liberia’s civil war dragged on until August 1996, claiming more than 200,000 lives before various factions agreed to disarm and permit free elections in July 1997. Taylor and his National Patriotic Party crushed 12 rivals in that contest,

115

116

D O E, SA M U E L K A N YO N

AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY (ACS) Organized in 1816 as the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America, the ACS counted among its founders such early 19thcentury luminaries as future secretary of state Henry Clay, Congressman and future U.S. minister to Russia John Randolph, Congressman Charles Fenton Mercer, and former congressman Richard Bland Lee. Their stated purpose was the “return” of free blacks to Africa as a means of gradually eradicating slavery through voluntary deportation. Committed as he was to compromise between free and slave states to preserve the Union, Henry Clay and his associates encouraged “repatriation” of African Americans who had never before set foot in Africa, and to that end helped found the colony of Liberia in 1821, promoted to the status of an independent republic in 1847. Future president Abraham Lincoln, an admirer of Clay, initially supported the ACS program, but later admitted, in 1854, that its slow progress offered little hope for ending slavery. The ACS continued its efforts after America’s civil war, shipping more than 13,000 black Americans to Liberia by 1867. It published a journal, the African Repository and Colonial Journal, until 1919, and did not formally disband until 1964.

winning 75 percent of the vote from a populace hoping for peace. Instead, they found themselves dwelling in a pariah state, as Taylor used “blood diamonds” and illegal timber exports to finance the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone’s civil war. Bloodshed resumed in Liberia during April 1999, when exiles fighting as the Organization of Displaced Liberians invaded the country from Guinea. In June 2003, the Special Court for Sierra Leone indicted Charles Taylor for war crimes. Taylor resigned in August and fled to Nigeria, but he was captured in March 2006 and convicted at The Hague on April 26, 2012. Meanwhile, Prince Johnson returned to Liberia in March 2004, but left again in April, citing death threats. He won a senate seat from Nimba County in 2005, and sought the presidency in 2011, but failed to unseat incumbent Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. See also: Tolbert, William Richard, Jr. (1913–1980).

Further Reading Ellis, Stephen. The Mask of Anarchy Updated Edition: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War. New York: New York University Press, 2006.

DOLLFUSS, ENGELBERT

Meredith, Martin. The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence. New York: Public Affairs, 2011. Waugh, Colin. Charles Taylor and Liberia: Ambition and Atrocity in Africa’s Lone Star State. London: Zed Books, 2011. Williams, Gabriel. Liberia: The Heart of Darkness. Victoria, BC: Trafford, 2006.

DOLLFUSS, ENGELBERT (1892–1934) On July 25, 1934, the outlawed Austrian Nazi Party staged a coup d’état against the Austrian government led by Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. Disguised as soldiers and police, 154 members of the Schutzstaffel (“Protection Squadron”) invaded the chancellery building and shot Dollfuss, and the remainder of his cabinet escaped unharmed. Another group of putschists seized a Viennese radio station and broadcast a false report that Dollfuss had ceded authority to Nazi leader Anton Rintelen. Two days of fighting ensued, claiming 250 lives and injuring at least 500 persons. Four thousand Nazis were detained, of whom 13 were later hanged, and 7 more committed suicide. Others escaped to Germany and Yugoslavia. Engelbert Dollfuss was born on October 4, 1892, in Texing, Lower Austria, to an unwed mother who never named his father. After education at a Roman Catholic seminary, he studied law at the University of Vienna, then economics at the University of Berlin. Initially rejected by the AustroHungarian army in World War I, due to his short stature, he was finally accepted for combat in Italy, where he was decorated for valor, then captured in 1918. With arrival of the armistice, he joined the rightwing Christian-Social Party. He took over Austria’s ministry of Nazi terrorists killed Austrian chancellor Engelbert agriculture as secretary to the Dollfuss in July 1934. (Associated Press)

117

118

DUBS, ADOLPH

farmers’ association, and was elevated to serve as director of Lower Austria’s Chamber of Agriculture in 1927. Three years later, he became president of Austrian Federal Railways, then switched again in 1931 to serve as minister of agriculture and forests. In May 1932, following the resignation of Chancellor Karl Buresch, President Wilhelm Miklas offered the post to Dollfuss. After a night of prayer and fasting, Dollfuss accepted leadership of a coalition government involving four contentious parties and faced with an economic crisis in the middle of the Great Depression. In March 1933, after a quarrel over voting procedures prompted leaders of parliament’s lower house to resign in protest, Dollfuss persuaded President Miklas to adjourn the legislature indefinitely, fielding police to bar its members from returning. Henceforth, he ruled as dictator of Austria, mingling church and state in a system that outsiders dubbed “Austrofascism.” On May 1, 1934, he proclaimed a one-party government led by the Vaterländische Front (“Fatherland’s Front”). By that time, Dollfuss faced a challenge from Austrian Nazis loyal to Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Dollfuss banned the native Nazis’ paramilitary Republikanischer Schutzbund (“Republican Protection League”) in June 1933; a fourday civil war erupted in February 1934, with estimated death tolls ranging from 242 to 1,118. Authorities crushed the Nazi revolt, executing 10 of its leaders, but the conflict between fascist factions continued, culminating in the abortive July coup of 1934. An estimated 500,000 of Austria’s 6.5 million citizens attended funeral services for Dollfuss in Vienna. Vice Chancellor Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg briefly succeeded Dollfuss, then ceded power to Kurt Schuschnigg on July 29, 1934, while returning to his normal duties. Supported by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, French foreign minister Pierre Laval, and British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, Schuschnigg ruled Austria through the “Stresa Front” until German troops invaded and annexed Austria in March 1938. Further Reading Brook-Shepherd, Gordon. Prelude to Infamy: The Story of Chancellor Dollfuss of Austria. New York: I. Obolensky, 1962. Kitchen, Martin. The Coming of Austrian Fascism. London: Routledge, 1980. Maass, Walter. Assassination in Vienna. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972. Messner, Johannes. Dollfuss: An Austrian Patriot. Norfolk, VA: Gates of Vienna Books, 2004.

DUBS, ADOLPH (1920–1979) On February 14, 1979, four men dressed as traffic police approached a black Chevrolet stopped in a no-parking zone outside the cultural center in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan. When the driver rolled down his window, the

DUBS, ADOLPH

“officers” drew guns and directed him to the government-owned Kabul Hotel, two miles away. Arriving there, the gunmen removed their target—U.S. ambassador Adolph “Spike” Dubs—from the car and marched him into the hotel’s lobby. While three fired shots into the ceiling, the fourth made a phone call to the Afghan foreign ministry, announcing, “We’ve got the ambassador.” Proclaiming themselves members of the Settam-e-Melli (“National Oppression”) movement, the kidnappers demanded release of imprisoned leader Badruddin Bahes, in exchange for Dubs. Minister of national defense Hafizullah Amin denied that Bahes was in government custody, and refused to negotiate with terrorists in any case. Three hours after the abduction, Afghan security forces and Russian advisors stormed Room 117 of the hotel, killing Dubs and his kidnappers in a brief firefight. Adolph Dubs was born in Chicago on August 4, 1920, earned a degree in political science from Beloit College in 1942, and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war, he completed his graduate studies in political science at Georgetown University, then Foreign Service studies at Harvard and at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. From there, he joined the United States Foreign Service as a career diplomat, filling posts in Canada, Germany, Liberia, Russia, and Yugoslavia, while earning a reputation as an expert on the Soviet Union. After the Saur Revolution of April 1978 brought the Khalq (“masses”) faction of the People’s Democratic Party to power in Afghanistan, Dubs was appointed ambassador to that perpetually troubled nation. Washington did not replace Dubs with a new ambassador. The Kabul embassy was closed in 1989, with no new ambassador appointed until 2002, following occupation of the country by U.S. troops. Meanwhile, in 1992, defecting Soviet major Vasili Mitrokhin arrived in the United States with 25,000 pages of classified documents, including reports that KGB advisor Sergei Batrukihn recommended the failed “rescue attempt” over U.S. protests—and authorized execution of one captured gunman before he could be questioned by U.S. investigators. In March 1992, President Mohammad Najibullah offered to appoint a high-level investigative commission “when an official appeal is made to us by the U.S. State Department.” In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, he added, “I do not have so much hope, but we will begin the work. My personal view is that there has been no document from the very beginning. But of course, when we look, something will be found. At least we will achieve something.” In fact, Najibullah left office the following month and was killed by Taliban opponents in 1996. The promised investigation never occurred. Vasili Mitrokhin published six volumes of KGB history and documents in the United States between 1999 and 2005, known collectively as the “Mitrokhin Archive,” with the final installment appearing after his death.

119

120

DUCA, ION GHEORGHE

Further Reading Ansary, Tamim. Games without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan. New York: Public Affairs, 2012. Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012. Fitzgerald, Paul, and Elizabeth Gould. Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2009. Tomsen, Peter. The Wars of Afghanistan: Messianic Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts, and the Failures of Great Powers. Philadelphia: Public Affairs, 2011.

DUCA, ION GHEORGHE (1879–1933) On December 30, 1933, Romanian prime minister Ion Duca was ambushed by assassins at the railway station in Sinaia, a mountain resort patronized by the royal family and prominent guests. His killers were three members of the fascist Iron Guard, dubbed the “Nicadori” by their comrades, after their initials: Nicolae Constantinescu, Ion Caranica, and Doru Belimace. Arrested at the murder scene, all three were convicted and sentenced to life at hard labor, but they were subsequently killed with other Iron Guard assassins during transport to Jilava prison, on November 30, 1938. A native of Bucharest, born on December 20, 1879, Ion Duca was elected to Romania’s Chamber of Deputies (lower house of the country’s bicameral legislature) in 1907, as a member of the National Liberal Party. In 1914, he joined the cabinet of Prime Minister Ion Bra˘ tianu, and in the same year participated in the founding of Cercetas¸ii României (“Romania’s Scouts”), a branch of the international Scouting movement. When Prime Minister Br˘atianu returned for a fourth term in 1922, he named Duca as his minister of foreign affairs, supporting the “Little Entente” with Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, to prevent Hungary Iron Guard assassins murdered Romanian prime from regaining territory lost to minister Ion Duca in 1933. (AP/Corbis) its neighbors after World War I.

D U D AY E V, D Z H O K H A R M U S AY E V I C H

On November 14, 1933, King Carol II named Duca as prime minister, replacing Alexandru Vaida-Voevod of Transylvania. Duca clashed immediately with the Iron Guard, ordering thousands of its members arrested for acts of violence preceding general elections scheduled for December 20–29, 1933. That action led directly to his murder by the three Nicadori, as an act of retaliation. His murder was the first major Romanian assassination since that of Barbu Catargiu in 1862, but it would not be the last. With the Nicadori imprisoned, Iron Guardists formed a new death squad, Decemviri, so called because it had 10 members. On July 16, 1936, they killed Iron Guard defector Mihai Stelescu at a Bucharest hospital, where he had checked in for an appendectomy. After shooting Stelescu at least 38 times (some accounts say 200), they dismembered his corpse with axes and danced around the ward in celebration until they were arrested. They were killed by guards, together with the Nicadori, in November 1938. Another team, the Ra˘ zbun˘atori (“Avengers”), assassinated Prime Minister Armand C a˘ linescu in 1939. The Iron Guard ultimately gained control of Romania and struck back at its enemies on November 26, 1940, executing at least 14 prisoners at Jilava penitentiary. Those slain included ex-prime minister Gheorghe Arges¸ anu, former justice minister Victor Iamandi, former Bucharest police prefect Gabriel Marinescu, former gendarmerie inspector general Ioan Bengliu, former chief of secret police Mihail Moruzov, Colonel Vasile Zeciu (who organized the 1938 executions), Majors Aristide Macoveanu and Iosif Dinulescu (who carried them out), and Staff Sergeant Sârbu (who personally strangled Nicolae Constantinescu). Following the massacre, the killers thanked the prison’s warden for assisting them, then held a brief ceremony at Constantinescu’s grave. Further Reading Frantz, Douglas, and Catherine Collins. Death on the Black Sea. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Hitchens, Keith. Rumania 1866–1947. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Petreu, Marta. An Infamous Past: E. M. Cioran and the Rise of Fascism in Romania. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2005. Riley, Dylan. The Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe: Italy, Spain, and Romania, 1870–1945. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.

DUDAYEV, DZHOKHAR MUSAYEVICH (1944–1996) On April 21, 1996, President Dzhokhar Dudayev used a satellite phone to call Russian statesman Konstantin Borovoy from the village of Gekhi-Chu, 18 miles southwest of Grozny in the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. A Soviet Beriev A-50 surveillance aircraft, already hunting the rebel leader, intercepted his call and alerted Sukhoi Su-25 fighter planes to Dudayev’s

121

122

D U D AY E V, D Z H O K H A R M U S AY E V I C H

location. The fighters fired two laser-guided missiles, and the ITAR-TASS news agency subsequently announced that Dudayev died in the resulting explosions. Chechen guerrilla commander Shamil Basayev confirmed Dudayev’s death, whereas Interfax—a nongovernmental Russian news agency—contradicted that report, quoting Saipudi Khasanov, Dudayev’s private secretary, as saying that the president “is alive and working as usual.” Claims of Dudayev’s survival continued into 2003, but no evidence of a faked death has yet been produced. Dzhokhar Dudayev was born at Yalkhoroy, a village named for its dominant clan in the former Chechen–Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, on February 15, 1944. Days after his birth, the region’s entire population was deported to the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic on orders from Russian dictator Joseph Stalin, living in exile until 1957. Following repatriation, Dudayev studied to become an electrician, then joined the Russian army in 1962. Four years later, he graduated from the Higher Military Aviation School for Pilots at Tambov, then joined the Communist Party and thereby gained admission to the Soviet Air Force Academy. Ultimately rising to the rank of major general, he served in Afghanistan during 1986–1987, winning the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of the Red Star for bravery. From 1987 to 1990, Dudayev commanded a unit of long-range nuclear bombers based at Tartu, Estonia, where he appeared to sympathize with nationalist dissidents, ignoring orders to muzzle the Estonian media. Retired from military service by May 1990, Dudayev returned to Chechnya and entered politics, winning election to the executive committee of the separatist All-National Congress of the Chechen People (NCChP). Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 encouraged militant action, prompting NCChP members to seize the local Supreme Soviet on September 6. A hasty referendum created the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria on November 1, with Dudayev elected as its first president. Conflict between Ingush and Ossetian ethnic factions split the republic in June 1992, leaving the state of Ichkeria to declare independence from the rest in June 1993. President Dudayev dissolved parliament and demanded withdrawal of all Russian troops from Chechnya. The resultant First Chechen War erupted on December 1, 1994, when Russian bombers decimated Dudayev’s air force at Grozny airport. A full-scale invasion proceeded 10 days later, with Russian troops capturing Grozny, driving Dudayev’s into hiding at a missile silo near the historic Chechen capital of Vedeno. Although some native Muslims questioned their president’s faith, based on his prior actions in Afghanistan, Dudayev appointed Akhmad Kadyrov as chief mufti of Ichkeria, followed by a declaration of jihad against Russian forces. Muslim volunteers from other nations bolstered Chechen ranks, and the war dragged on, killing more than 23,000 soldiers and an estimated 100,000 civilians. Fighting continued for another four months after Dudayev’s assassination, ending with the Khasavyurt Accord on August 30, 1996.

D U D AY E V, D Z H O K H A R M U S AY E V I C H

Vice President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev succeeded Dudayev in office, even as tales of the martyred president’s survival persisted. Dudayev’s son-in-law, Salman Raduyev, met with reporters and swore on the Quran that he had spoken to Dudayev in an unnamed European country on July 5, 1996. Raduyev promised that his father-in-law would soon return, but the appointed “Hour X” passed with no sign of Dudayev. In August 2001, Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov declared that Dudayev “may be alive,” living incognito to avert further warfare. In September 2003, other sources declared that a “twin” of Dudayev was killed in 1996, announcing plans to “put him in front of TV cameras in Turkey” before Chechnya’s next presidential election, but Dudayev remains among the missing. Further Reading Jagielski, Wojciech. Towers of Stone: The Battle of Wills in Chechnya. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2009. Sheets, Lawrence. Eight Pieces of Empire: A 20-Year Journey through the Soviet Collapse. New York: Broadway Paperbacks, 2011. Smith, Sebastian. Allah’s Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005. Treisman, Daniel. The Return: Russia’s Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev. New York: Free Press, 2011.

123

This page intentionally left blank

E EARP, MORGAN SETH (1851–1882) The Wild West’s most famous gunfight occurred in Tombstone, Arizona, on October 26, 1881. At 3:00 P.M. that Wednesday, the Earp brothers—Morgan, Virgil, and Wyatt, all local or federal lawman—joined gambler John “Doc” Holliday to, as they later claimed, disarm a group of outlaws including William Claiborne, Ike and Billy Clanton, and Frank and Tom McLaury. Claiborne and Ike Clanton fled the battleground before the shooting started. When the gun smoke cleared, with 30 shots fired in as many seconds, Billy Clanton and both McLaury brothers were dead, and Holliday and two of the Earps suffered flesh wounds. Ike Clanton charged the Earps and Holliday with murder, but a month-long preliminary hearing exonerated them. Two months later, on December 28, unidentified gunmen shot Virgil Earp in an ambush, leaving him with one arm permanently crippled. On March 18, 1882, at 10:50 P.M., an unseen sniper killed Morgan Earp at a Tombstone billiards parlor, in the presence of Wyatt and three other witnesses. Recalling a family promise to share any visions observed near the moment of death, Morgan gasped to Wyatt, “I can’t see a damned thing.” Morgan Earp was born in Pella, Idaho, on April 24, 1851, the fourth of six sons in a family today regarded as iconic Western figures. Eldest brother Newton Earp was satisfied to farm and raise a family after his service in the Civil War, but his brothers passed into history, often lionized in fabricated tales of derring-do—from early dime novels to Hollywood films—that cast them as heroes. The truth, unearthed by slow degrees since the 1960s, is rather different. James Earp, second oldest of the brothers, was a saloon keeper by preference, married in 1873 to a Wichita prostitute, but he also dabbled in law enforcement as a deputy marshal in Dodge City, Kansas. Morgan joined him there, also as a deputy, in 1875, followed by brother Wyatt in 1876 and Virgil in 1877. While arresting drunks, the brothers also managed gambling dens and brothels in Dodge, earning a reputation as “the fighting pimps” for their belligerence. James was the first to pull up stakes and move to Tombstone, in 1879, followed in 1880 by the other three and youngest brother Warren Earp. Again, they settled in as gamblers, saloon keepers, and panderers, and Virgil doubled as a deputy U.S. marshal for the eastern portion of Pima County, subsequently named as Tombstone’s city marshal. In that post, he deputized Morgan and Wyatt to help him enforce the Earps’ brand of law and order.

126

E A R P, M O R G A N S E T H

Their opposition in Tombstone included John Behan, named as sheriff of newly formed Cochise County in February 1881, and his cohorts in a gang known as the Cowboys, a loose-knit band of rustlers and robbers dominated by the Clanton and McLaury families, with quick-draw killers Johnny Ringo and “Curly Bill” Brocius. The Cowboys specialized in stagecoach robberies and stealing Mexican cattle for sale in the United States. Trouble between the Earps and Cowboys began on March 15, 1881, with a stage holdup near Contention that netted the bandits $26,000 in silver bullion ($626,000 today). The Earps accused four Cowboys; others claimed Doc Holliday himself had led the raid. A month later, on April 19, Tombstone’s city council passed an ordinance directed chiefly at the Cowboys, banning anyone from carrying firearms, Bowie knives, or dirks within the city’s limits. After several confrontations with the Cowboys, who ignored the ordinance, the Earps set out to strip them of their weapons on October 26. The rest is history—or fiction, as the case may be. After Morgan Earp’s assassination, a coroner’s jury named Cowboys Pete Spence, Frank Stilwell, Florentino “Indian Charlie” Cruz, Frederick Bode, and another known only as Fries as the probable killers. Witnesses reported them skulking near the pool hall when Earp was shot, and Spence’s wife claimed the outlaws had boasted of the shooting, within an hour of its occurrence. Spence surrendered to sheriff Behan for protective custody, and the surviving able-bodied Earps and Holliday determined to eradicate their enemies in a campaign memorialized today as the “Earp vendetta ride.” Retribution began on March 20, 1882, in Tucson. Wyatt and Warren Earp, with Holliday and two other deputies, were escorting Virgil and his wife aboard a train to California when they saw Frank Stillwell and Ike Clanton, apparently lying in ambush. Clanton fled once again, but the Earps cornered Stillwell and riddled him with bullets, leaving him, in the words of witness George Hand, “the worst shot up man I ever saw.” Tucson Justice of the Peace Charles Meyer issued arrest warrants for Stillwell’s killers, but they refused to surrender when confronted by sheriff Behan in Tombstone. Behan responded by deputizing various Cowboys and leading them in pursuit of Earp’s manhunting posse. Thus began the peculiar spectacle of county deputies pursuing federal lawmen—a total of 10, deputized by Wyatt Earp—while their quarry hunted Cowboys with clear homicidal intent. There is no indication that the Earps ever intended to arrest the men they stalked. On March 22, 1882, they surprised Florentino Cruz at a camp in the Dragoon Mountains, shooting him four times at close range. Two days later, near Iron Springs in the Whetstone Mountains, they met “Curly Bill” Brocius and eight other cowboys, engaging in a pitched battle that left Brocius dead and another Cowboy, Johnny Barnes, mortally wounded.

E A R P, M O R G A N S E T H

The day after that shootout, March 25, Tucson’s grand jury indicted Pete Spence, Frank Stilwell, “Indian Charlie” Cruz, Frederick Bode, and “John Doe” Fries for Morgan Earp’s murder. Cruz and Spence were dead by then, and Fries was absconding, but Spence and Bode faced trial on April 2. The prosecutor called Spence’s wife, whereas defense attorneys objected to her evidence as hearsay and insisted that a wife should not be forced to testify against her husband. The judge agreed, then dismissed the charges for lack of evidence. Around the same time, Earp’s posse left Arizona for New Mexico Territory, moving on from there to Colorado, beyond the reach of sheriff Behan. Denver police arrested Doc Holliday on May 15, 1882, for extradition to Tucson, but Wyatt Earp persuaded friend Bat Masterson—then marshal of Trinidad, Colorado—to wangle Holliday’s release from custody. Two months later, the Cowboy gunman was shot and killed near Chiricahua Peak, in Arizona’s Cochise County. His slayer was never identified, and whereas some researchers blame Doc Holliday, court records from Pueblo County, Colorado, place Holliday there on July 11, 14, and 18, 1882. Although Wyatt was unquestionably the most famous Earp brother—thanks in large part to dime novels and his own self-promotional skills—Morgan also appears in various film and television portrayals of the family’s often-fictionalized adventures. Actors who have portrayed him include Harvey Stephens in Tombstone, the Town Too Tough to Die (1942); Ward Bond in My Darling Clementine (1946); Peter Graves in Wichita (1955); DeForest Kelley in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957); Sam Melville in Hour of the Gun (1967); Rex Holman in “Spectre of the Gun,” a Star Trek episode originally aired on October 25, 1968; Philip Shafer in Doc (1971); Bill Paxton in Tombstone (1993); Ray Boyle in Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone (1994); Linden Ashby in Wyatt Earp (1994); and Austin Nicols in an episode of HBO’s Deadwood series, “Leviathan Smiles,” originally aired on July 30, 2006. To date, the O.K. Corral gunfight and its aftermath have been depicted in at least nine feature films since 1939, plus various documentaries. Perspectives on the conflict differ radically, and there seems little doubt that controversy will continue. Further Reading Guinn, Jeff. The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral—And How It Changed the American West. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012. Marks, Paula. And Die in the West: The Story of the O.K. Corral Gunfight. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996. Roberts, Gary. Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. Tefertiller, Casey. Wyatt Earp: The Life behind the Legend. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. Waters, Frank. The Earp Brothers of Tombstone. Lincoln, NE: Bison Books, 1976.

127

128

EDMUND I

EDMUND I (922–946) On May 26, 946, King Edmund I of England celebrated St. Augustine’s Mass Day at Pucklechurch, a village in South Gloucestershire. While feasting with other nobles, Edmund cast his eyes over the crowd and saw an exiled thief named Leof (or Leofa, in some accounts) seated among the revelers. Recognizing the uninvited diner as an “atrocious robber” he had banished six years earlier, Edmund rushed to arrest Leof himself. Grabbing the bandit by his hair, he threw Leof to the floor, but was stabbed in the chest when Leof drew a hidden dagger. As Edmund lay dying, his attendants mobbed the killer, reportedly “tearing him limb from limb.” Born at Wessex in 922, Edmund was the son of King Edward the Elder and his third wife, and half-brother to Aethelstan, first king of a unified England from 927 to 939. In 937, he fought at Aethelstan’s side in the Battle of Brunanburh, defeating the combined forces of Norse-Gael king Olaf Guthfrithsson, Constantine II of Scotland, and Owen I of Strathclyde. At Aethelstan’s death, on October 27, 939, Edmund succeeded him as king. Olaf Guthfrithsson, still smarting from his previous defeat, conquered Northumbria and part of Mercia (now the Midlands), but Edmund began recapturing that territory after Olaf died in 941. Four years later, he conquered Strathclyde, then ceded it to King Malcolm I of Scotland in return for a pledge of mutual military support. Those campaigns— as well as Edmund’s revival of monasteries in England, and his role in restoring Louis IV to the throne of France—earned him recognition in his lifetime as Edmund the Deed-doer, Edmund the Just, and Edmund the Magnificent. In retrospect, his primary achievement as king was the establishment of a safe borKing Edmund I of England, murdered by an exiled der and peaceful relations with bandit at a feast. (Getty Images) Scotland, to the north.

E D WA R D T H E M A R T Y R

Following his murder, Edmund’s younger brother Eadred ruled as king until his death from a “digestive malady” in 955. Eadred died a childless bachelor, whereupon Edmund’s son, Eadwig the Fair, assumed the throne. Eadwig quarreled with other members of his family, and with church leaders, including Archbishop Oda of Canterbury and Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury. Though driven into exile, Dunstan raised support for an alternate monarch, Athelstan half-king of West Anglia, leaving Eadred to rule only Wessex and Kent from 957 to his death on October 1, 959. His younger brother and successor, Edgar I—though dubbed “Edgar the Peaceable”—had already seized Northumbria and Mercia from Eadred in 958. At Eadred’s death, Edgar made peace with the church by recalling Dunstan to serve as bishop of Worcester, later as bishop of London and archbishop of Canterbury. Historians mark his death in 975 as the effective end of Anglo-Saxon England, which succumbed to 11th-century conquests by Danes and Normans. Further Reading Fraser, Antonia, ed. The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Panton, Kenneth. Historical Dictionary of the British Monarchy. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2011. Phillips, Charles. The Complete Illustrated Guide to the Kings & Queens of England. Leicester: Anness Publishing, 2006. Stafford, Pauline. Unification and Conquest: A Political and Social History of England in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries. London: Edward Arnold, 1989.

EDWARD THE MARTYR (962–978) On March 18, 978, King Edward of England stopped at Corfe Castle in Dorset to visit his half-brother brother Æthelred and his sister-in-law, Ælfgifu of York. He was slain on the castle grounds that evening, in circumstances still disputed by historians. One version says that he was murdered by a group of Æthelred’s advisors on arrival, while dismounting from his horse. Another story claims that Ælfthryth, Æthelred’s mother, organized the attack—or even killed Edward herself—to advance her son. Modern historian Frank Stinton portrays Edward as an unstable ruler who “had offended many important persons by his intolerable violence of speech and behavior. Long after he had passed into veneration as a saint it was remembered that his outbursts of rage had alarmed all who knew him, and especially the members of his own household.” An early text, the Peterborough Chronicle, was more charitable, stating that: “No worse deed for the English race was done than this was, since they first sought out the land of Britain. Men murdered him, but God exalted him. In life he was an earthly king; after death he is now a heavenly saint. His

129

130

E D WA R D T H E M A R T Y R

earthly relatives would not avenge him, but his Heavenly Father has much avenged him.” The eldest son of King Edgar the Peaceable, born circa 962, Edward was crowned at Edgar’s death in July 975, supported by Archbishops Dunstan and Oswald, despite protests from his younger half-brother, dubbed Æthelred the Unready. Hostile noblemen Ælfhere of Mercia and Æthelwine of East Anglia soon took advantage of young Edward’s weakness to seize lands bestowed by his father to various Benedictine monasteries, briefly threatening a civil war that is sometimes called “the anti-monastic reaction” to Edgar’s close relations with the church. The appearance of a comet in the heavens seemingly encouraged many superstitious folk to join church leaders in supporting Edward’s coronation. If so, his succession did not help clerical reformers who had supported his father. Corrupt secular clerics, banished under Edgar, soon returned and routed their opponents from various English monasteries, and nobles forced beleaguered abbots to surrender leases granted under Edgar. Although few documents remain from Edward’s reign, it is known that he reversed his father’s policy of minting coins only at Westminster. That change, coupled with his inability to halt quarrels between rival lords in the hinterlands, leaves an impression of weakness and disorganization for his short tenure as king. Following Edward’s murder, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle declared that he was buried at Wareham, in Dorset, “without any royal honors.” Archbishop Wulfstan II, writing between 1010 and 1016 in his Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (“Sermon of the Wolf to the English”), goes further yet, stating that Edward’s corpse was burned. Something must have remained, because his corpse was reburied with high ceremony in February 980, at Shaftesbury Abbey in Dorset, then moved again in 1001 to a more prominent place at the same abbey. His portrayal as a martyr apparently springs from Edward’s support of his father’s policy toward the church, as portrayed in clerical writings. King Henry VIII dissolved England’s monasteries in the 16th century, but monks concealed Edward’s remains to avert desecration. Archaeologists recovered and tentatively identified his bones in 1931. A dispute arose, as to who should claim the relics, with claims filed by Shaftesbury abbey and the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia. Edward—if it was Edward—spent decades in a Surrey bank vault, before he was finally consigned to Woking’s Brookwood Cemetery, in September 1984. Further Reading Fell, Christine. Edward, King and Martyr. Leeds: University of Leeds School of English, 1971. Higham, Nick. The Death of Anglo-Saxon England. Stroud, United Kingdom: Sutton, 1997. Panton, Kenneth. Historical Dictionary of the British Monarchy. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2011.

EISNER, KURT

EISNER, KURT (1867–1919) Bavarian minister–president Kurt Eisner bears the distinction of having been murdered unnecessarily by a political opponent. On February 21, 1919, while en route to resign from Bavaria’s parliament, he was shot in the back by German nationalist Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley. Historians speculate that ArcoValley (as he is more commonly known) killed Eisner to win approval from the anti-Semitic and ultra-nationalist Thule Society, a cult of sorts that had rejected his membership application. Speaking for himself, Arco-Valley explained that he hated Eisner because the minister–president “is a Bolshevist, a Jew; he isn’t German, he doesn’t feel German, he subverts all patriotic thoughts and feelings. He is a traitor to this land.” Born in Berlin, then capital of the kingdom of Prussia, on May 14, 1867, Kurt Eisner studied philosophy, then switched to journalism, serving from 1890 to 1895 as a contributing editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung. An outspoken member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), he served nine months in prison for an editorial that criticized Kaiser Wilhelm II and emerged unrepentant. In 1900, he replaced the late Wilhelm Liebknecht as editor of Vorwärts (“Forward”), the SDP’s chief public organ, which featured articles by Communist Manifesto coauthor Friedrich Engels, among other leftists. Leaving Vorwärts in 1905, Eisner thereafter confined his political efforts to Bavaria, writing as a freelance journalist and serving as chief editor of Nuremberg’s Fränkische Tagespost from 1907 to 1910. In the midst of World War I, Eisner shifted his allegiance to the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, and served another nine-month prison term for treason, after inciting a strike by munitions workers. Freed in a general amnesty that October, he played a key role in fomenting the German Revolution of 1918–1919, which deposed King Ludwig III as Bavaria’s monarch. Eisner proclaimed a Bavarian Repub- Bavarian minister-president Kurt Eisner, killed by lic on November 23, 1918, but a political rival in February 1919. (DB/dpa/Corbis)

131

132

ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA

the rebellion continued until August 1919, with adoption of the Weimar Constitution declaring Germany a democratic parliamentary. Eisner did not live to see that transient victory, however, as German backlash over the harsh Treaty of Versailles led to his party’s electoral defeat in January 1919, overwhelmed by the conservative Bavarian People’s Party. Anton Arco-Valley was convicted of Eisner’s murder and sentenced to death in January 1920, but a friendly right-wing judge commuted his sentence to five years in prison, and the state prosecutor declared, “If the whole German youth were imbued with such a glowing enthusiasm we could face the future with confidence.” Arco-Valley remained in Cell 70 at Stadelheim Prison until 1924, when he was released to make room for recently convicted Adolf Hitler. Placed on probation until 1927, Arco-Valley was then pardoned and apparently retired from public life, although Third Reich leaders later decorated him as a “hero of the [Nazi] movement.” Hitler seemed ambivalent toward Arco-Valley, writing that “Eisner’s death only hastened developments and led finally to the Soviet dictatorship, or to put it more correctly, to a passing rule of Jews, as had been the original aim of the instigators of the whole revolution.” Perhaps ironically, Arco-Valley’s elder brother married a cousin of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who rescued thousands of Jews from Nazi-occupied Hungary during World War II. Further Reading Grunberger, Richard. Red Rising in Bavaria. Galway, Ireland: M.W. Books, 1973. Luhrssen, David. Hammer of the Gods: The Thule Society and the Birth of Nazism. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2012. Mitchell, Allan. Revolution in Bavaria, 1918–1919: The Eisner Regime and the Soviet Republic. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965.

ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA (1837–1898) In September 1898, Empress Elisabeth of Austria traveled incognito to Geneve, Switzerland, with her lady in waiting, Countess Irma Sztáray de Sztára et Nagymihály. They lodged at the Hôtel Beau-Rivage, on Lake Geneva, where the empress had stayed during a previous visit, in 1897. At 1:35 P.M. on September 10, they left the hotel to catch the paddle steamer Genève, bound for Montreux. Elisabeth, despising royal processions, had insisted that they walk without the other members of her entourage. As they approached the steamer’s dock, Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni approached and stabbed Elisabeth beneath her left breast with a four-inch needle file attached to a wooden handle. The empress collapsed, then walked another 100 yards, supported by two passersby, and reached the Genève before Countess Sztáray noticed blood on her dress. The boat had sailed by then, but soon returned to port when

ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA

Elisabeth’s injury was discovered. Carried back to the Hôtel Beau-Rivage on an improvised stretcher, she was attended by two doctors who pronounced her dead at 2:10 P.M. A tragic figure in AustroHungarian history, Her Royal Highness Duchess Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie was born in Munich on December 24, 1837, the fourth child of eccentric Duke Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria. In April 1854, she entered into an arranged marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, thus becoming both empress of Austria and queen of Hungary. Elisabeth’s mother-in-law, the domineering Princess Sophie of Bavaria, virtually kidnapped the empress’s first two daughters, born in Empress Elisabeth of Austria, stabbed by an anar1855 and 1856, refusing to let chist while on holiday, in 1898. (Alinari via Getty Elizabeth nurse either infant or Images) take in part in their care, naming the first child after herself. The younger Sophie died from typhus in 1857, and her namesake harangued Elisabeth to produce a male heir and printed an anonymous pamphlet denouncing her for failure to conceive a son. She finally fulfilled that “duty,” bearing Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, in August 1858, but festering tension still blighted her relationship with Princess Sophie. Although renowned for her great beauty, which inspired a cult of sorts among high-born Austrian women, Empress Elizabeth habitually wore tight leather corsets (leading the Prince of Hesse to describe her as “almost inhumanly slender”), practiced a strict regimen of exercise (with fencing lessons begun at age 50), and undertook “fasting cures” with steam baths whenever her weight topped 110 pounds. Hairdressing along consumed two hours of her daily schedule, extended further by applications of various beauty creams concocted in the court pharmacy or by Countess Sztáray. Looks aside, Elisabeth suffered from depression, exacerbated by her mother-in-law, the death of her first child, her father’s death in November 1888, and the suicide of son Rudolf in January

133

134

ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA

1889 (found with his murdered mistress, Baroness Marie Alexandrine von Vetsera). She avoided having any other children, and was heard to say, “Children are the curse of a woman, for when they come, they drive away Beauty, which is the best gift of the gods.” On the day of her assassination, Elisabeth’s trademark corset initially prevented her from realizing that she had been stabbed. On receiving news of his wife’s death, Franz Joseph feared that it was suicide. An autopsy proved otherwise, after which the postmortem instruments and photographs were destroyed on orders from the emperor. Meanwhile, Luigi Lucheni was detained while fleeing from the scene of the attack, and his discarded weapon was recovered on September 11. In custody, Lucheni said he had chosen his tool—used to file the eyes of industrial needles—because he lacked 12 francs to purchase a stiletto. Committed to the “propaganda of the deed,” he declared, “I am an anarchist by conviction . . . I came to Geneva to kill a sovereign, with object of giving an example to those who suffer and those who do nothing to improve their social position; it did not matter to me who the sovereign was whom I should kill . . . It was not a woman I struck, but an Empress; it was a crown that I had in view.” At trial in October 1898, Lucheni was enraged to hear that Geneva had abolished capital punishment. Seeking martyrdom, he penned a letter demanding trial in the Canton of Lucerne, where executions were still permitted, signing the note, “Luigi Lucheni, anarchist, and one of the most dangerous.” Instead, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and began work on a lengthy memoir. After guards seized that manuscript, in October 1910, Lucheni hanged himself in his cell. Despite Lucheni’s insistence that he acted alone, Elisabeth’s murder inspired the International Conference of Rome for the Social Defense against Anarchists, held between November 24 and December 21, 1898, with delegates from 21 nations attending. After defining anarchism as “as any act that used violent means to destroy the organization of society,” all participating countries agreed to create special agencies to conduct surveillance on suspected anarchists, ban membership in anarchist organizations, restrict civilian access to explosives, limit press coverage of anarchist activities, and impose mandatory capital punishment for killing heads of state. Empress Elisabeth—“Sisi” to her friends, frequently misspelled “Sissi” for some unknown reason in fictional works—has proved irresistible to authors of stage productions, films, novels, and television programs. Stage productions based on her life include Fritz Kreisler’s comic operetta Sissi (1932); Jean Cocteau’s play L’Aigle à deux têtes (The Eagle with Two Heads), written in 1943 and first produced in 1946; Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet Mayerling (1978); the musical Elisabeth (1992); and Maurice Béjart’s 1993 ballet Sissi, l’impératice anarchiste (Sissi, Anarchist Empress). Feature films include Kaiserin Elisabeth von Österreich (1921), coauthored by Elisabeth’s niece, Marie Larisch; The King Steps

ERIC V OF DENMARK

Out (1936); Cocteau’s The Eagle with Two Heads (1948); Sissi (1955); Sissi—The Young Empress (1956); Sissi—Fateful Years of an Empress (1957); Forever My Love (1962); Mayerling (1968); Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Mystery of Oberwald (1981); and Sisi/Last Minute (1991). Fictionalized television portrayals of Elisabeth include Fall of Eagles (1974); Princess Sissi (1997); Sissi, l’impératrice rebelle (2004); The Crown Prince (2006); and Sisi (2009). Elisabeth also appears as a character in at least three novels: Stars in My Heart, by Barbara Cartland (1981); Spangle, by Gary Jennings (1987); and Elisabeth: The Princess Bride, by Barry Denenberg (2003). Further Reading Buschek, Alfred. Elisabeth, Empress of Austria. Concord, MA: Infinity Publishing, 2010. Cunliffe-Owen, Marguerite. Martyrdom of an Empress. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2005. Hamann, Bridget. The Reluctant Empress. Berlin: Ullstein Taschenbuch, 2000. Haslip, Joan. The Lonely Empress: Elisabeth of Austria. Phoenix, NY: Phoenix Press, 2000. Stephan, Renate. Empress Elisabeth of Austria, 1837–1898: The Fate of a Woman Under the Yoke of the Imperial Court. Vienna: Austria Imperial, 1998.

ERIC V OF DENMARK (1249–1286) On November 22, 1286, after a long day’s hunt in the countryside surrounding Viborg, on Denmark’s Jutland peninsula, King Eric V and his royal entourage stopped for the night in the village of Finderup. As they slept in the local church barn, a group of assassins disguised as Franciscan monks crept among them, surrounding Eric and stabbing him 56 times, leaving his corpse to be found the next morning. Suspicion fell first upon nobleman Stig Andersen Hvide, who hated Eric for seducing his wife while Andersen was serving as a general in Denmark’s army, then expanded to include Count Jacob Nielsen of Halland (a Swedish province ruled by Denmark). A special court convicted Andersen, Nielsen, and seven other suspects—all members of Eric’s inner circle—whereupon all of their property was forfeited and they were banished under threat of death. Born in 1249, the son of King Christopher I, Eric was deemed too young to rule in his own right when his father died—perhaps a victim of poison— in May 1259. The Danish court chose Eric’s mother, queen dowager Margaret Sambiria, to reign as regent, no easy task when powerful rivals vied for the throne. One contender, Archbishop Jakob Erlandsen, was a suspect in King Christopher’s death and had excommunicated the bishop who anointed 10-year-old Eric as his father’s successor. Another was Chief Jarimar II of Rügen (an island in the Baltic Sea), who promptly invaded neighboring Danish-held Zealand. Queen Margaret fought back, but Danish forces lost to Jarimar at Ringsted, whereupon his troops pressed on to sack Copenhagen before year’s

135

136

ERIC XIV OF SWEDEN

end. Jarimar might have pressed farther, but he was slain by a rural farmer’s wife, whereupon his leaderless army withdrew. Queen Margaret, meanwhile, faced a new challenge from Duke Valdemar of southern Jutland, supported by German allies. Their combined might defeated Danish forces at the Battle of Lo Heath, capturing both Margaret and Eric in 1261, compelling Margaret to cede royal property in Jutland as the price of their release. Archbishop Erlandsen, meanwhile, persisted in his efforts to depose the queen and Eric, until Pope Urban IV intervened. As an adult monarch, Eric aggravated other Danish nobles by attempting to reduce their personal authority, breaking his promises at every turn, and by seducing any woman who aroused him, regardless of age or marital status. He earned the nickname “Klipping”—from the common medieval practice of cutting coins to reduce their value—as a demonstration of popular opinion that he had cheated or “short-changed” both his subjects and the Danish monarchy itself. Historians remain undecided as to which of his unfortunate character traits contributed the most to Eric’s murder. One point of broad agreement is that the conviction of his supposed assassins was probably a miscarriage of justice. Although Stig Andersen Hvide had ample reason to wish Eric dead, no evidence placed him or any of his codefendants at the scene of the crime. Neither was the accused permitted to testify in their own defense, or to call supporting witnesses, rights clearly granted to them under Danish law. Even their motive was dubious, because all nine were intimates of Eric and actually stood to lose influence at his death. Convicted nonetheless, Andersen settled on the island of Hjelm and raised a band of pirates who terrorized the Danish coast until his death in December 1293. Count Nielsen retired to Halland and allied himself with King Eric II of Norway, but his influence declined as Eric II and successor Haakon V lost interest in conquering Denmark. Twelve-year-old Eric VI succeeded his father as king of Denmark in 1286, with his mother—queen consort Agnes of Brandenburg—ruling as regent until 1294. Unrest persisted, and his reign continued Denmark’s “Age of Decay,” including further conflict with the church and rival noblemen. Further Reading Jespersen, Knud. A History of Denmark. Houndsmill, Hampshire, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Jordan William. Europe in the High Middle Ages. London: Penguin Books, 2004.

ERIC XIV OF SWEDEN (1533–1577) A mentally unstable monarch, likely schizophrenic and prone to killing those he thought were plotting against him, King Eric XIV of Sweden was deposed by

ERIC XIV OF SWEDEN

rebellious nobles on September 30, 1568. The rebels chose Eric’s half-brother, Duke John of Finland, to replace him on the throne, while Eric was imprisoned, shuttled around various castles in Sweden and Finland over the next eight years. He died on February 25, 1577, after consuming a meal of pea soup that was said to be poisoned. A document signed by King John III and Sir Bengt Bengtsson Gilt, a Swedish judge, empowered Eric’s jailers to poison him if anyone tried to release him from custody, but his cause of death remained uncertain until 1958, when exhumation and autopsy revealed lethal levels of arsenic in Eric’s remains. Born at Stockholm’s Tre Kronor (“Three Crowns”) Castle on December 13, 1533, Eric lost his mother—queen consort Catherine of Saxe-Lauenburg— seven weeks before his second birthday. Rumors spread that Eric’s father, Gustav I, had murdered Catherine with a hammer, but a 20th-century examination of her skeleton revealed no evidence of homicide. Gustav married Swedish noblewoman Margaret Leijonhufvud in 1536, and she bore him seven children, including two future kings. At Gustav’s death, in September 1560, Sweden’s parliament elected Eric as the nation’s next monarch. Whereas Gustav had satisfied himself with ruling an independent kingdom, Eric sought to build an empire in the Baltic region and by seizing territory from Estonia. By 1563, when those ambitions sparked the Northern Seven Years’ War, with Sweden battling a coalition of Denmark, Norway, the Free City of Lübeck, and the Polish–Lithuanian Union, Eric’s mental instability had grown apparent to his family and other members of his court. Arbitrary rule, marked by fits of personal violence, reached its nadir in July 1566, when a group of concerned nobles gathered in Stockholm to discuss Eric’s increasingly erratic behavior. Learning of their “treason,” Eric invited them to Svartsjö Palace, where they were confined and placed on trial, convicted, and subsequently murdered in their cells on May 24, 1567. That massacre, during which Eric personally stabbed one of the prisoners to death, paved the way for the rebellion that dethroned Eric in 1568. Although his life was spared, the order for jailers to kill him if escape seemed imminent suggests the danger that was seen in his attempting to regain the throne. John III ruled Sweden for another 15 years after his brother’s death in custody, also assuming the title Grand Prince of Finland in 1581. His son, Sigismund III Vasa, was crowned king of Poland in September 1587, thereby resolving one of Sweden’s foreign conflicts. At John’s death, in November 1592, Sigismund succeeded him as Sweden’s king. He tried to rule from Poland, while restoring strict Roman Catholicism to his homeland, but that effort led to his defeat at Battle of Stångebro, in September 1598. Thereafter, Sigismund ruled Sweden from abroad, but he returned to Poland and was then officially deposed in July 1599.

137

138

E R I M , I S M A I L N I H AT

Further Reading Bain, Robert. Scandinavia: A Political History of Denmark, Norway and Sweden from 1513 to 1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905. Robert, Michael. The Swedish Imperial Experience, 1560–1718. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

ERIM, ISMAIL NIHAT (1912–1980) On July 19, 1980, two assassins ambushed former Turkish prime minister Ismail Erim outside his summer home in the Kartal district of eastern Istanbul, killing Erim and a bodyguard with close-range gunfire. Although the shooters escaped, spokesmen for Turkey’s militant Dev Sol (“Revolutionary Left”) organization claimed responsibility for the attack. Authorities speculated that shooting was retaliation for Erim’s order to execute three radicals in May 1972, following their conviction for a January 1971 bank robbery in Ankara. One of those hanged, Deniz Gezmis¸, had been a founder of the People’s Liberation Army of Turkey and was regarded as a martyr by Dev Sol—itself a splinter of a spin-off from the original organization. Born in 1912 at Kandıra, in Hüdavendigâr, Ismail Erim graduated from Istanbul University Law School in 1936 and earned his LLD from Paris Law School three years later. He taught at Ankara University’s law school from 1939

Turkish prime minister Ismail Erim, shot by members of the Revolutionary Left in Istanbul. (Bettmann/Corbis)

E R I M , I S M A I L N I H AT

to 1943, when he was named as legal advisor to the Turkish ministry of foreign affairs. In 1945, he joined Turkey’s delegation to the founding conference of the United Nations, and was elected to represent Kocaeli Province in Turkey’s parliament, as a member of the Republican People’s Party. Appointed as minister of public works in June 1948, Erim held that post until January 1949, when he was elevated to the job of deputy prime minister. Erim’s party lost its parliamentary majority in May 1950, whereupon he became chief political editor for the newspaper Ulus (“Nation”). When that paper shut down in 1953, Erim published his own, Yeni Ulus–Halkçı (“New Nation–Populist”). In 1956, he was elected as Turkey’s representative to the European Commission of Human Rights, and also participated in negotiations over Cyprus, held in London. His involvement with Cyprus continued through 1959, when Erim led Turkey’s committee on preparation of a new Cypriot constitution. Turkey’s military coup of May 27, 1960, toppled the ruling Democrat Party, but the junta restored civilian government in October 1961. Erim was reelected to parliament from Kocaeli Province, and began nine years of service as Turkey’s representative to the Council of Europe, winning election as that body’s deputy secretary general. In 1969, he was appointed as a member of the United Nations’ International Law Commission, at The Hague. Meanwhile, political mayhem continued in Turkey, capped by another military coup on March 12, 1971. Two weeks later, the ruling junta chose Erim as a “neutral” prime minister, seated to form a coalition government for “national unity.” That effort proved fruitless, and mass resignation of his cabinet led Erim to resign on December 3, 1971. President Cevdet Sunay restored Erim to his post eight days later, but poor health led Erim to resign for good on April 17, 1972. Violence on right and left accelerated through the remainder of the 1970s, with 5,388 political murders recorded by 1978. At the time of Erim’s death, planning was underway for Turkey’s third coup d’état, initially scheduled for July 11, 1980, then pushed back to August 26, and yet again to September 12. On that final date, General Kenan Evren, army chief of staff, seized Turkish airwaves and declared martial law nationwide in the name of the National Security Council. Later investigation revealed that Evren had solicited support from other army officers a full year earlier, beginning on September 11, 1979. The generals of Turkey’s War Academy had voted to support the coup on December 21, 1979, with a formal proposal for the plan—dubbed “Operation Flag”—drafted in March 1980. In June 1981, the junta appointed 160 persons to draft a new constitution for Turkey, which was approved by public referendum in June 1982. Democratic elections resumed in November 1983, but although the generals sought to dictate terms of their own retirement, they were not entirely successful. Another referendum, in September 2010, launched an investigation of the coup and led

139

140

EVERS, MEDGAR WILEY

to the foundation of a Specially Authorized Ankara Deputy Prosecutor’s Office in June 2011. In January 2012, indictments were filed against ex-generals Evren and Tahsin S¸ahinkaya, the only coup leaders still living. Charged with the deaths of 191 political prisoners, the defendants were scheduled to face trial in April 2012. Further Reading Ahmad, Feroz. The Making of Modern Turkey. London: Routledge, 1993. Hale, William. Turkish Politics and the Military. London: Routledge, 1993. Zürcher, Eric. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005.

EVERS, MEDGAR WILEY (1925–1963) On June 12, 1963, a sniper’s bullet killed Medgar Evers, state leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. Police found a rifle hidden in bushes nearby and identified its last known owner as Byron De La Beckwith, a resident of Greenwood, Mississippi, and an outspoken member of various racist groups including the Citizens’ Council and the Ku Klux Klan. Facing trial for murder in February 1964, Beckwith was surprised and delighted when exgovernor Ross Barnett appeared in court to shake his hand, in full view of jurors. That panel failed to reach a verdict, and a second jury likewise deadlocked in April 1964. Released thereafter without further charges, Beckwith returned to a hero’s welcome in Greenwood and ran for lieutenant governor in 1967, on the slogan “He’s a straight-shooter.” Medgar Evers was born outside Decatur, Mississippi, on July 2, 1925, and attended segregated schools there until he was drafted for service in World War II, at age 18. Soon after his return, in 1945, an incident occurred that set the stage for his life’s work. Evers and brother Charles were sitting on the steps of a rural Mississippi courthouse when U.S. senator Theodore Bilbo emerged, telling police, “Get those niggers out of here. The next thing you know, they’ll be running for office.” As Charles Evers recalled the event, Medgar turned to him, smiling, and remarked, “You know, that’s not a bad idea.” It was premature, however, in a state where most African Americans were barred from voting and the races were rigidly segregated from cradle to grave. After attending all-black Alcorn College (now Alcorn State University), with a major in business administration, Evers worked as an insurance agent until 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered school integration “with all deliberate speed.” Despite that order, Evers was denied admission to the University of Mississippi’s law school, and focused instead on work for the NAACP, rising quickly to statewide leadership as the organization’s field secretary. In an atmosphere of escalating violence, harassed with countless threats, logging frequent reports of

EVERS, MEDGAR WILEY

unpunished race-related murders, Evers campaigned to register black voters and supported legal offensives including the federal lawsuit that secured James Meredith’s admission to the University of Mississippi in September 1962. Despite that victory—marked by a racist riot that left two men dead and scores injured, including more than 100 deputy U.S. marshals—none of Mississippi’s elementary or high schools were desegregated by the time Evers was killed in 1963. His best efforts had registered 28,000 African American voters statewide, but the vast majority were still excluded from the ballot box. The year of his murder, two new militant Ku Klux Klan (KKK) factions established themselves in Mississippi, eclipsing the “respectable” Citizens’ Councils and inaugurating years of mayhem that saw 75 black churches bombed or burned by arsonists in 1964 alone.

MISSISSIPPI “FREEDOM SUMMER” From the 1880s onward, Mississippi earned notoriety as the United States’ “most segregated” state, a “closed society” impervious to outside influence, where white supremacy was enforced by a combination of law, police brutality, and vigilante terrorism. In 1963, young members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized a mock “Freedom Vote” demonstrating the desire of black Mississippians to vote, if unimpeded by intimidation. Soon afterward, a Council of Federated Organizations—combining elements of SNCC, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference—began laying plans for a “Freedom Summer” campaign in 1964. The operation’s vehicles were local “freedom schools, voter-registration drives conducted in the face of stolid, often violent resistance, and a new Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party with interracial membership. More than 1,000 out-of-state volunteers, 90 percent of them white, teamed with Mississippi-born African Americans for the 10-week campaign. Additionally, more than 100 volunteer doctors, nurses, psychologists, medical students, and other medical professionals from the Medical Committee for Human Rights donated their services for emergency care, health-education classes, and improvements in Mississippi’s Jim Crow health system. An official tabulation for summer listed 7 deaths; 4 persons critically wounded by gunfire; 80 persons beaten; 1,062 arrests; and 117 churches, homes and businesses bombed or burned by nightriders. Visible results were modest, with few new voters registered, but the bold campaign helped motivate passage of the federal Voting Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon Johnson in August 1965.

141

142

E WA R T- B I G G S, C H R I S T O P H E R T H O M A S

Byron De La Beckwith was in the thick of that white resistance, serving as a Klan recruiter and “motivational speaker,” hobnobbing with terrorists, finally convicted in August 1975 of conspiring to murder a prominent Jewish community leader in Louisiana. Paroled in January 1980, Beckwith relocated to Tennessee, serving as pastor for a Knoxville congregation of the “Christian Identity” sect—a white supremacist, anti-Semitic cult whose leaders teach that “subhuman” Jews were spawned in the Garden of Eden, after Eve had sex with Satan in serpentine form. For decades it seemed that Beckwith would avoid conviction for killing Medgar Evers, but Mississippi prosecutors reopened the case in 1993, based on new evidence including FBI reports that Beckwith had confessed the slaying to friends and at KKK rallies. Convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1994, Beckwith stalled incarceration with appeals until 1997, when the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld his conviction. He died in custody, from complications of heart disease, hypertension, and other ailments, on January 21, 2001. Medgar Evers is an icon of the 1960s civil rights movement, and Beckwith remains a martyr to hard-core white-supremacists. Charles Evers, older brother of Medgar, was elected as mayor of Fayette, Mississippi, in 1969. That same year, police arrested three other members of a KKK splinter group, the Knights of the Green Forest, on charges of conspiring to kill the mayor-elect. Captured at a local motel with automatic weapons, the trio served time on various charges. Hollywood examined the Medgar Evers case in Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), with James Woods cast as Byron De La Beckwith. Evers himself, played by James Pickens Jr., appears only in the film’s opening sequence, and the remainder depicts events from the 1990s. See also: Ku Klux Klan (1866– ).

Further Reading Evers, Myrlie, and William Peters. For Us, the Living. Oxford: University Press of Mississippi, 1996. Massengill, Reed. Portrait of a Racist. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. Nossiter, Adam. Of Long Memory: Mississippi and the Murder of Medgar Evers. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1994. Vollers, Maryanne. Ghosts of Mississippi: The Murder of Medgar Evers, the Trials of Byron De La Beckwith, and the Haunting of the New South. New York: Back Bay Books, 1995. Williams, Michael. Medgar Evers: Mississippi Martyr. Little Rock: University of Arkansas Press, 2011.

EWART-BIGGS, CHRISTOPHER THOMAS (1921–1976) On July 21, 1976, members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) detonated a mine in the Dublin suburb of Sandyford, demolishing a car

E WA R T- B I G G S , C H R I S T O P H E R T H O M A S

occupied by British ambassador to Ireland Christopher Ewart-Biggs and others. The blast killed Ewart-Biggs and civil servant Judith Cooke, while wounding driver Brian O’Driscoll and passenger Sir Brian Cubbon, then Northern Ireland’s highest-ranking government official as permanent undersecretary of state. Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Liam Cosgrave declared the bombing an “atrocity [that] fills all decent Irish people with a sense of shame,” and British prime minister James Callaghan branded the killers a “common enemy whom we must destroy or be destroyed by.” Authorities detained 13 suspected PIRA members after the assassination, but no convictions were obtained and the crime remains officially unsolved. Christopher Ewart-Biggs was born in Thanet, Kent, on August 5, 1921, the son of a captain in the Royal Engineers. He attended Wellington College, in Berkshire, and University College, Oxford, prior to the outbreak of World War II. Enlisting with the British army’s Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, he participated in the Second Battle of El Alamein (October 1942), and was wounded there, losing his right eye to shrapnel. Thereafter, Ewart-Biggs wore a false eye partially disguised by a smoked-glass monocle that became his personal trademark. Leaving the army for a career in diplomatic service, Ewart-Biggs next found his life at risk in Algeria, where he served as British consul in early 1961, during transition from French colonial rule to independence. Perhaps fortunately, diehard colonialists operating as the Organisation de l’armée secrète (Secret Army Organization) focused most of their homicidal energy on French president Charles de Gaulle, and Ewart-Biggs left Algiers unscathed, while an estimated 50,000 persons were slain by lynch mobs in the wake of liberation. Ireland was another danger zone for British diplomats in 1976, when Ewart-Biggs replaced Sir Arthur Galsworthy as ambassador to Dublin. The latest round of Northern Ireland’s “troubles” had begun in May 1966, when a loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), publicly declared war on the Irish Republican Army. A campaign of sectarian murders targeting Catholics ensued, followed by rioting between loyalists and republicans in Belfast and elsewhere. A split in IRA ranks spawned the new PIRA in December 1969, pursuing a policy of armed resistance against right-wing terrorists, police, and British occupation forces. By spring 1974, the PIRA had expanded its bombing campaign to England and the Republic of Ireland, with lethal blasts in Dublin, Monaghan, and West Yorkshire. A PIRA truce, announced in February 1975, foundered in January 1976, as Ambassador Galsworthy prepared to retire. The UVF renewed hostilities by executing six Catholic civilians in County Armagh, whereupon PIRA gunmen killed 10 Protestants in the same district. As Britain’s new ambassador to Ireland, appointed in July, Ewart-Biggs became an irresistible target. Following her husband’s murder, Jane Ewart-Biggs entered politics as a member of the Labour Party and became a Life Peer in the House of Lords, in

143

144

E WA R T- B I G G S, C H R I S T O P H E R T H O M A S

May 1981. There, she campaigned to improve Anglo-Irish relations, and also served in 1984 as president of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Outside of politics, in 1977, she established the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, awarding £5,000 annually to a book, a play, or a piece of journalism that promotes peace and reconciliation in Ireland, a greater understanding between the peoples of Britain and Ireland, or closer cooperation between partners of the European Community. Further Reading Bishop, Patrick, and Eamonn Mallie. The Provisional IRA. London: Corgi, 1987. Coogan, Tim. The IRA. New York: Palgrave, 2000. McKearney, Tommy. The Provisional IRA: From Insurrection to Parliament. London: Pluto Press, 2011. Shanahan, Timothy. The Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Morality of Terrorism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008.

F FAISAL BIN ABDUL-AZIZ AL SAUD (1906–1975) On March 25, 1975, while entertaining petitions from his subjects at the royal residence in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, King Faisal greeted visitors from neighboring Kuwait. His half-brother’s son, Prince Faisal bin Musa'id bin Abdul-Aziz, was also present, having recently returned from the United States. As King Faisal leaned in to kiss his nephew, Prince Faisal drew a pistol and shot his uncle twice, in the chin and ear. A bodyguard slashed at the prince with a sheathed sword, while Oil Minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani shouted orders to spare the prince’s life. King Faisal reached the hospital alive, but surgeons could not save his life. Despite reports that he forbade Prince Faisal’s execution with his dying breath, the assassin was convicted of murder on June 18, 1975, and publicly beheaded the same afternoon, before a crowd of thousands. His brother, Bandar, served a year in prison on suspicion of conspiracy, and was then released. Born in Riyadh, in April 1906, Faisal was the third son of Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud, first king of Nejd and Hejaz from 1926 to 1932, then first king of Saudi Arabia from August 1932 until his death in November 1953. Son Saud bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud assumed the throne, and younger brother Faisal graduated from service as governor of Hijaz (appointed by their father in 1925) to become minister of foreign affairs, also commanding an army unit that participated in the Saudi–Yemeni War of early 1934. Vast wealth derived from oil in the wake of World War II sent King Saud on an epic spending spree that, coupled with his evident incompetence in foreign affairs, appeared to threaten both the monarchy and the nation. In 1958, senior members of the royal family and high-ranking Muslim clerics persuaded Saud to make Faisal prime minister, with sweeping executive powers. Faisal curbed spending, then resigned his post in December 1960, in a dispute with Saud over the level of authority granted to Saudi Arabia’s Council of Ministers. He was reinstalled as prime minister in 1962, but conflicts with his brother continued, prompting Saud to abolish the office by royal decree. In January 1963, while Saud sought medical treatment abroad, Faisal replaced key office holders with his own supporters and placed his brother Abdullah in charge of the National Guard. Saud returned to find himself outnumbered and outgunned, pressured to accept a purely ceremonial

146

FA I S A L I I O F I R AQ

role and Faisal assumed command of the country. Saud resisted until March 1964, when Faisal was appointed as regent, formally replacing his brother as king on November 2, 1964. As king, Faisal balanced the nation’s budget, increased oil production, and supported selective modernization of Saudi Arabia’s government, including the establishment of a judicial system and civil service, a modern welfare system, creation of administrative regions, and pursuance of five-year plans for economic development. Faisal had already established the nation’s first television station, although broadcasts were delayed until 1965. A year later, one of his ultraconservative nephews—Prince Khalid ibn Musa’id, brother of Faisal’s assassin—was killed by police while attacking a Saudi television station he condemned as decadent. In 1969, Faisal arrested hundreds of army officers, announcing that they had conspired to depose him by force. Closely allied with the United States, he reportedly learned of the budding coup from agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Journalists suggested three possible motives for Faisal’s assassination. One school of thought suggested that Prince Faisal acted belatedly to avenge his brother’s killing by police, nine years earlier. The Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar speculated that his death was retribution for deposing King Saud in 1964. A rival paper, Al-Bayrak, alleged that King Faisal had restricted his nephew–assassin’s foreign travels, based on concern over Prince Faisal’s drinking and drug abuse while outside the country. A fourth theory, popular with anti-American elements, claimed that the CIA had used Prince Faisal to eliminate the king. No motive for the agency’s decision to assassinate a seeming friend was ever clarified. King Faisal was succeeded by a younger brother, Khalid bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, who reigned until his death from heart failure in June 1982. Another brother, Fahd bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, then occupied the throne until his death from pneumonia in August 2005. The country’s present king, brother Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, maintains his family’s longstanding alliance with the United States. Further Reading Beling, Willard. King Faisal and the Modernisation of Saudi Arabia. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1980. de Gaury, Gerald. Faisal: King of Saudi Arabia. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2008. Stefoff, Rebecca. Faisal. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2008. Vassiliev, Alexi. King Faisal of Saudi Arabia: Personality, Faith and Times. London: Saqi Books, 2013.

FAISAL II OF IRAQ (1935–1958) In the early hours of July 14, 1958, while en route to Jordan in support of King Hussein and President Camille Chamoun against rebellious opposition led by

FA I S A L I I O F I R A Q

Prime Minister Rashid Karami, Iraqi troops led by General Abd al-Karim Qasim marched on Baghdad instead, staging a coup d’état against King Faisal II, Crown Prince ‘Abd al-Ilah, and Prime Minister Nuri asSaid. By 8:00 A.M., the rebel soldiers had surrounded the royal family’s al-Rahab Palace and Nuri as-Said’s residence. Royal guards offered no resistance as Faisal, the crown prince, Princess Hiyam (‘Abd al-Ilah’s wife), Princess Nafeesa (‘Abd al-Ilah’s mother), Princess Abadiya (Faisal’s aunt), and several servants were herded into the palace courtyard, lined up against a wall, and cut down by machine-gun fire. All but Faisal were killed outright; the king was placed aboard an King Faisal II of Iraq died in a military coup, on July 14, 1958. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images) ambulance but died en route to Baghdad’s Royal Hospital. Nuri as-Said, forewarned of the attack, briefly eluded his pursuers, but was killed by insurgents on July 15, effectively ending Iraq’s 37-year Hashemite monarchy. Born in Baghdad on May 2, 1935, Al-Malik Fais.al Ath-tha¯nı¯ was the only son of Ghazi I, Iraq’s second king, and Queen Aliya bint Ali. A mysterious singlecar crash killed Ghazi in April 1939, leaving some Iraqis convinced he was murdered on orders from Nuri as-Said, then serving the second of his eight terms as prime minister. That case remained unproven, and although three-year-old Faisal officially succeeded his father, uncle ‘Abd al-Ilah ruled as regent until Faisal attained his majority in May 1953. He spent the years of World War II in England, studying at Harrow School with his cousin, future King Hussein of Jordan. Meanwhile, ‘Abd al-Ilah injured the monarchy by signing the AngloIraqi Treaty of January 1948 (extending British influence over Iraq, established in prior treaties from 1922 and 1930), and by persuading Faisal to sign the Baghdad Pact of 1955, allying Iraq with Britain, Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey, in the anticommunist Central Treaty Organization. Massive protest demonstrations followed ratification of both agreements, with hundreds of protesters killed by Iraqi troops and police.

147

148

FA L C Ó N , R A M Ó N L O R E N ZO

By the time Faisal assumed his throne, rebellion was already brewing inside his army. A corps of pan-Arab “Free Officers,” inspired by those who toppled Egypt’s monarchy in 1952, fomented uprisings in Hayy and Najaf in 1956. In February 1957, a coalition of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, Iraq’s Communist Party, and the National Democrats organized a “Front of National Union,” supported by a parallel “Supreme Committee of Free Officers” within the Iraqi officer corps, which ultimately served as the spearhead of rebellion against King Faisal. Following destruction of the monarchy, a revolutionary council was established, with General Qasim serving as prime minister and minister of defense, and Colonel Abdul Salam Arif became deputy prime minister, minister of the interior, and commander in chief of the army. A three-man “Sovereignty Council” was created, with representatives from Iraq’s three largest ethnic groups: Muhammad Mahdi Kubbah spoke for Shi’ite Muslims; Muhammad Najib arRuba’I represented Sunnis; and Khalid al-Naqshabandi served as spokesman for the Kurds. Despite those measures, and announcement of a temporary constitution on July 27, 1958, an era of political upheaval followed the July revolution. In March 1959, the New York Times declared Iraq “confused and unstable,” plagued by “cross currents of communism, Arab and Iraqi nationalism, anti-Westernism and the ‘positive neutrality’ of President Gamal Abdel Nasser of the United Arab Republic.” That instability resulted in ultimate triumph for the Ba’ath Party, which led a coup against President Qasim in February 1963, supported by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Party chief Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr seized office as prime minister, advanced to the presidency and chairmanship of the Revolutionary Command Council in July 1968, then was replaced by fellow Ba’athist Saddam Hussein in July 1979. Further Reading de Gaury, Gerald. Three Kings in Baghdad: The Tragedy of Iraq’s Monarchy. London: I.B. Tauris, 2008. Khadduri, Majid. Independent Iraq, 1932–1958. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960. Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

FALCÓN, RAMÓN LORENZO (1855–1909) On November 14, 1909, mourners gathered in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the funeral of Antonio Ballvé, director of the country’s National Penitentiary. Among those present was Ramón Falcón, chief of the Capital Police, attending with Juan Lartigau, his executive secretary. After the service, as they were returning to headquarters on Moreno Street, Ukrainian immigrant anarchist Simón Radowitzky rushed to Falcón’s carriage and lobbed a homemade bomb

FA L C Ó N , R A M Ó N L O R E N Z O

through the window. Its explosion fatally wounded both Falcón and Lartigau, both victims dying before they reached the nearest hospital. Arrested at the scene, Radowitzky described his attack as retribution for the Semana Roja (“Red Week”) in May 1909, when Falcón’s police shot and brutalized striking workers in Buenos Aires. Convicted of murder and sentenced to death, 18-year-old Radowitzky secured commutation of his sentence to indefinite imprisonment by proving that he was a minor. A native of Buenos Aires, born on August 30, 1855, Ramón Falcón was among the first enrollees at Brazil’s National Military College, graduating with honors in 1873. He subsequently served as aide-de-camp to President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, then joined in General Julio Argentino Roca’s “Conquest of the Desert” campaign during 1878–1879, annihilating native villages whose land was coveted by wealthy cattle ranchers. As General Roca explained the campaign: “Our self-respect as a virile people obliges us to put down as soon as possible, by reason or by force, this handful of savages who destroy our wealth and prevent us from definitely occupying, in the name of law, progress and our own security, the richest and most fertile lands of the Republic.” On a lighter note, in 1887, Falcón founded the Club de Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata, today the Western Hemisphere’s oldest soccer club, still in existence today. Retiring from the army as a colonel, in 1898, he was elected to Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies as a member of the ruling National Autonomist Party. In 1906, with the outbreak of organized labor unrest, President José Figueroa Alcorta chose Falcón to lead the Policía de la Capital and crush insurgent movements. To that end, Falcón employed the tactics he had learned in military service, while annihilating aboriginal tribesmen. During the Buenos Aires Tenants’ Strike of July 1907, he fielded mounted troops armed with sabers against unarmed protesters, and drove rent strikers from their homes with high-pressure hoses. On May 1, 1909, members of the anarchist Argentine Regional Workers’ Federation (FORA) staged a May Day demonstration in the capital, where Falcón’s shock troops killed 11 marchers and wounded more than 100. That incident sparked a general strike, and led in turn to Falcón’s “Red Week” of unbridled violence, coupled with anti-Semitic propaganda against “Russian Jewish instigators” and enforced censorship of newspaper reports on police brutality. On Falcón’s orders, police also shut down FORA’s newspaper, La Protesta Humana, and La Vanguardia, published by the Socialist Party of Argentina. Benito Villanueva, president of Argentina’s senate, later intervened to reduce the long prison terms handed out to demonstrators jailed in May 1909, but President Alcorta and members of the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange staged a rally in the chief’s support. Following Falcón’s assassination, President Alcorta declared a nationwide state of siege and signed a Law of Social Defense, permitting deportation of

149

150

FERREIR A DO A M AR AL, JOÃO M ARIA

accused “agitators.” After winning commutation of his death sentence, Simon Radowitzky was initially jailed in Buenos Aires, but he escaped briefly in 1911, with 12 other inmates. Upon recapture, he was transferred to the dreaded National Penitentiary in Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego Province. There, he endured harassment and brutality allegedly including gang rape by a deputy warden and three guards, yet persisted in leading inmate hunger strikes and “protest choirs.” Anarchist colleagues engineered a second escape in 1918, but Radowitzky was recaptured 23 days later, punished with solitary confinement at Ushuaia until January 1921. President Hipólito Yrigoyen released Radowitzky in 1930 and expelled him from Argentina. He participated in the Spanish Civil War of 1936, then fled to Mexico after the fascist victory in Spain, surviving there as a toy factory worker until a heart attack claimed his life in February 1956. In Buenos Aires, in November 1943, the Capital Police force was transformed into the Argentine Federal Police (AFP). President Pedro Pablo Ramírez appointed his son as the chief, and although the force was slowly modernized, it retained an unsavory reputation. In 1973, returning President Juan Perón named Alberto Villar—a member of the right-wing Argentine Anticommunist Alliance death squad—to lead the department. Following Villar’s assassination in 1974, the AFP participated in a March 1976 coup d’état that deposed President Isabel Perón, thereafter collaborating with the military junta that tortured and murdered thousands of Argentineans. Further Reading Rock, David. Argentina, 1516–1987: From Spanish Colonization to Alfonsín. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Romero, Luis. A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002.

FERREIRA DO AMARAL, JOÃO MARIA (1803–1849) Macau, China, was a hotbed of dissension and conspiracy in 1849. Three hundred years of Portuguese occupation, including importation of opium and African slaves, had primed the native Chinese population for rebellion. Governor Joao Ferreira do Amaral stoked the fires of animosity in 1849 by imposing new taxes, expelling Qing dynasty officials from Macau and closing their Customs house, while simultaneously ceasing rent payments to the Qing government in Beijing. On August 22, 1849, seven Chinese led by Shen Zhiliang ambushed the governor outside Macau’s Lin Fong Temple, dragging him from his horse and stabbing him repeatedly, then dismembering him and leaving his head at

FERREIRA DO AMARAL, JOÃO MARIA

the temple’s entrance, fleeing with their victim’s severed limbs into Guangdong Province. Joao Ferreira do Amaral was born in Lisbon, Portugal, on March 4, 1803, the eldest son of a sergeant in the Portuguese Legion who had joined Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and lost his life there. Ferreira subsequently joined the Portuguese navy as a midshipman, advancing to the rank of commander by 1821. That same year, he was wounded in a naval engagement with Brazilian rebels, requiring amputation of one arm. After the surgery, performed while Ferreira smoked a cigar, he reportedly tossed his severed limb overboard with a shout of “Viva Portugal!” That incident and other exploits marked Ferreira for further advancement. By 1839, he was designated Captain of Sea and War (equivalent to full captain in the U.S. or British navies), and a knight fidalgo (“son of somebody”— i.e., an important person) of the Portuguese Royal household. After serving as a legislator for Angola in Portugal’s Chamber of Deputies, Ferreira was appointed to serve as governor of Macau on April 21, 1846. Within a month of taking office, he imposed a poll tax, property tax, and ground rent on all Chinese residents of the colony. Protests from Beijing were immediate and prolonged, ending only when Ferreira expelled Qing officials en masse from Macau. Ferreira’s assassination prompted demands for retribution from Portugal, echoed by supporting statements from the U.S., British, and Spanish consulates in nearby Hong Kong. It also triggered the “Baishaling Incident,” as Chinese imperial troops mobilized on the border separating mainland Guangdong Province from Macau. On August 25, Second Lieutenant Vicente Nicolau de Mesquita staged a preemptive strike against a Chinese fort at Baishaling, capturing the garrison of 400 soldiers and 20 cannons with a force of only 36 Portuguese troops. Authorities in Guangdong forestalled further attacks by arresting and executing Shen Zhiliang. In the process, they also recovered Ferreira’s missing arms and legs, returning them to the Portuguese colonial government. Guangdong villagers buried Shen under a headstone calling him “a fighter for justice,” whereas the Portuguese stamped the seal of their nation’s royal family on a stone outside the Lin Fong Temple. Perhaps surprisingly, given conditions in the colony, Ferreira was the only one of 189 Portuguese rulers killed in Macau by their Chinese subjects, during 450 years of colonial rule. Further Reading Ng, Maria. Pilgrimages: Memories of Colonial Macau and Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009. Yik-yi Chu, Cindy. Foreign Communities in Hong Kong, 1840s–1950s. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

151

152

F O R D, G E R A L D R U D O L P H , J R .

FORD, GERALD RUDOLPH, JR. (1913–2006)—ATTEMPTED Gerald Ford, the 38th president of the United States, was an easy target for comedians who focused on his seeming clumsiness—stumbling as he deplaned from Air Force One, slicing his golf ball into crowds of spectators, beaning his tennis partner with an awkward serve—but he also incited violent emotions from some U.S. residents, beginning with his controversial pardon of disgraced predecessor Richard Nixon, granted one month after his inauguration. Simple luck appeared to spare him in September 1975, when he survived two assassination attempts within 17 days. The first attempt occurred on September 5, at Capitol Park in Sacramento, California. While touring the park, Ford was approached by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a follower of imprisoned cult leader Charles Manson (see sidebar). Dressed in a red flowing robe, Fromme brandished a .45-caliber Colt pistol at Ford, but Secret Service agent Larry Buendorf grabbed the weapon, jamming its hammer with the webbing of his thumb. Police later discovered that although the pistol’s magazine contained four cartridges, the firing chamber was empty, unloaded by Fromme before she left her motel room. Fromme claimed that she hoped to speak with Ford concerning California’s endangered redwoods (a recent Manson theme), saying, “I stood up and waved a gun for a reason. “I was so relieved not to have to shoot it, but, in truth, I came to get life. Not just my life but clean air, healthy water and respect for creatures and creation.” Prosecuted under a 1965 statute that made attempted murder of a president a federal crime, Fromme received a life sentence and was paroled in August 2009, after serving 34 years. Ford was still in California when the second, more serious attempt on his life occurred, on September 22. Sara Jane Moore, a 45-year-old FBI informant and bookkeeper for People In Need (recently created by media mogul Randolph Hurst, on dePresident Gerald Ford survived two assassination mand from members of the attempts in September 1975. (Library of Congress) Symbionese Liberation Army

FORD, GERALD RUDOLPH, JR.

who had kidnapped his daughter), fired a .38-caliber revolver at Ford as the president left San Francisco’s St. Francis Hotel. A bystander deflected the shot, which struck a wall six inches from Ford’s head and ricocheted to wound a taxi driver. As Moore explained her act: “The government had declared war on the left. Nixon’s appointment of Ford as vice president and his resignation making Ford president seemed to be a continuing assault on America. I didn’t want to kill anybody, but there comes a point when the only way you can make a statement is to pick up a gun. I do regret I didn’t succeed, and allow the winds of change to start. I wish I had killed him. I did it to create chaos.” Like Fromme, Moore was sentenced to life, paroled in December 2007 after serving 32 years. Gerald Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr., in Omaha, Nebraska, on July 14, 1913. His parents separated 16 days after his birth, and divorced when he was five months old. His mother remarried in 1916, to Gerald Rudolff Ford, and applied the same name to her son, although her new husband never adopted the child. In later life, Ford changed the spelling of his middle name to the more conventional “Rudolph” and kept the “Junior.” Ford graduated from the University of Michigan in 1934, working as a boxing and basketball coach. Yale Law School rejected him in 1935, then reconsidered three years later, after Ford had spent a year of study at his alma mater’s law school. He earned his LLB in 1941, was admitted to Michigan’s bar that same year, then joined the U.S. Navy following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Discharged as a lieutenant commander in 1946, he returned to Michigan and entered politics as a Republican, winning the first of 12 congressional terms in 1948. During 1963–1964 he served on the Warren Commission, appointed to investigate the assassination of President John Kennedy, and critics of that investigation cite Ford’s close friendship with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to support claims of a whitewash, suggesting that Ford was “Hoover’s man” on the commission. From January 1965 to December 1973, Ford served as House Minority Leader. In October 1973, President Nixon nominated Ford to succeed Vice President Spiro Agnew, who had resigned and later pled “no contest” to taxevasion charges. The House confirmed Ford on December 6, and Nixon subsequently resigned in August 1974, leaving Ford as president. He remains the only Oval Office occupant in U.S. history who was never elected as president or as vice president by the Electoral College. On September 8, 1974, when Ford pardoned Nixon for any and all crimes committed during his presidency, many observers railed against the appearance of a “corrupt bargain” between Ford and Nixon. Ford, for his part, described Nixon’s humiliation as “a tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must.”

153

154

F O R D, G E R A L D R U D O L P H , J R .

THE MANSON “FAMILY” The so-called Manson Family was a cult of sorts, including up to 50 members at one time, mostly young drifters and runaways who fell into the orbit of middle-aged ex-convict Charles Milles Manson between 1967 and 1969. Roaming throughout and beyond California, the “family” lived hand-to-mouth, indulged in drug-fueled orgies at Manson’s direction, and listened with rapt attention as he spun predictions of an apocalyptic race war he called “Helter Skelter,” from the lyrics of a then-popular Beatles song with the same title. That conflict, Manson said, would climax with annihilation of whites by African Americans, who would then recognize their own ineptitude and seek his leadership to run the country they had captured. To precipitate that war, Manson dispatched his blackclad “creepy-crawlers” on a series of murderous home invasions in 1969, claiming at least eight lives (some estimates exceed 30 victims, including Manson’s own biological father, slain in Kentucky). In various trials, Manson and seven of his disciples were sentenced to death, those verdicts commuted to life imprisonment by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972. At the time of this writing, five are still in custody. Defendant Steve Grogan was released in 1985, after he led police to the remains of murder victim Donald “Shorty” Shea. Susan Atkins died in prison, from cancer, on September 24, 2009, and ex-family member Bruce Davis was paroled in October 2012, after serving 40 years for the 1969 slayings of Shea and musician Gary Hinman.

Lingering controversy over that pardon, coupled with various domestic and foreign issues, ensured that Ford would be a one-term president. He agreed reluctantly to seek another term, but floundered in debates with former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, despite Carter’s own missteps in the public eye. On election day, Ford carried 27 states to Carter’s 23, but he failed to secure an electoral majority. Ford remained active in the Republican Party after his defeat, and lived longer than any other U.S. president, dying in December 2006 at the age of 93 years and 165 days. Further Reading Bravin, Jess. Squeaky: The Life and Times of Lynette Alice Fromme. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. Brinkley, Douglas. Gerald R. Ford. New York: Times Books, 2007. Livesy, Clara. The Manson Women: A “Family” Portrait. Florham Park, NJ: Richard Marek, 1980.

FOSTER, MARCUS ALBERT

Mollenhoff, Clark. The Man Who Pardoned Nixon: A Documented Account of Gerald Ford’s Presidential Retreat from Credibility. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976. Sanders, Ed. The Family. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2002.

FOSTER, MARCUS ALBERT (1923–1973) On November 6, 1973, as Superintendent of Schools Marcus Foster and his deputy, Robert Blackburn, left a school board meeting in Oakland, California, they were ambushed by members of the radical-leftist Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). Foster suffered fatal wounds from hollow-point bullets filled with cyanide, and Blackburn was struck by a shotgun blast but survived. Following the murder, an SLA communique accused Foster and Blackburn of being “fascists” who wanted all Oakland students to carry identification cards. In fact, Foster—an African American popular with liberals—had opposed that plan and only grudgingly accepted more moderate plans to track school enrollees. A native of Athens, Georgia, born on March 31, 1923, Marcus Foster left the Jim Crow South with his family, as a child, and attended public schools in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He earned his bachelor’s degree from historically black Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, followed by a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. Between 1957 and 1970, he taught school in Philadelphia, advancing to the rank of principal at Gratz High School, then serving associate superintendent for community relations until the Oakland Unified School District recruited him as its new school superintendent. Before departing Philadelphia, he was honored with an award naming him as the person who had done the most for his adopted hometown. The early 1970s were a hectic time for schools in California and nationwide. Those years also witnessed the birth of the SLA, founded after inmate Donald David DeFreeze, aka “General Field Marshal Cinque,” escaped from Soledad Prison in March 1973. A small, strange group, the SLA was led by an African American (DeFreeze), but most of its members were white—though some wore blackface makeup, either as a disguise or a display of “solidarity” with ghetto residents. Foster’s assassination was the SLA’s first overt action, followed in February 1974 by the abduction and apparent brainwashing of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. (Hearst joined in a $10,000 San Francisco bank robbery and was later convicted as a willing participant, despite her claims of coercion.) On May 17, 1974, DeFreeze and four others died in a shootout with Los Angeles police and FBI agents. Meanwhile, Oakland police arrested SLA members Russell Little and Joseph Remiro for Foster’s assassination on January 10, 1974. Both were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, but the California Court of Appeal overturned Little’s verdict on June 5, 1981. Jurors acquitted him at his second trial, based

155

156

FR ANZ FERDINAND

on statements from surviving SLA members professing his innocence. According to Little, “Who actually pulled the trigger that killed Foster was ‘Mizmoon’ [Patricia Monique Soltysik]. Nancy [Ling Perry] was supposed to shoot Blackburn, [but] she kind of botched that and DeFreeze ended up shooting him with a shotgun.” Patricia Hearst, testifying at her own trial, named Soltysik and SLA member Emily “Yolanda” Harris as Foster’s killers. Harris served eight years in prison for Hearst’s kidnapping, and received another seven-year term in 2003, after pleading guilty to second-degree murder related to an April 1975 bank holdup. No charges were filed against her in the Foster case. Further Reading Bryan, John. This Soldier Still at War: The True Story of Joe Remiro and the Symbionese Liberation Army. London: Quartet Books, 1976. McCorry, Jesse. Marcus Foster and the Oakland Public Schools. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. McLellan, Vin, and Paul Avery. The Voices of Guns. New York: Putnam, 1977. Payne, Les, Tim Findley, and Carolyn Craven. The Life and Death of the SLA: A True Story of Revolutionary Terror. New York: Ballantine Books, 1976. Spencer, John. In the Crossfire: Marcus Foster and the Troubled History of American School Reform. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.

FRANZ FERDINAND (1863–1914) In some respects, the double murder that ignited World War I may be regarded as a tragicomedy of errors. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was traveling with his wife, Duchess Sophie of Hohenberg, from Ilidža Spa to Sarajevo, Serbia (now the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina), on June 28, 1914. A six-car motorcade conveyed them from Sarajevo’s railway station toward a military barracks, which Ferdinand was scheduled to inspect before proceeding to the town hall. Unknown to Ferdinand and company, a team of Bosnian Serb assassins lay in wait along the archduke’s route, hoping to kill him as a first step toward severing AustriaHungary’s south-Slav provinces and creating an independent Serbia. The first would-be killer, Muhamed Mehmedbašic, ´ was armed with a bomb but did not hurl it as the procession passed his station, at the Mostar Café. ˇ Vaso Cubrilovi c, ´ standing nearby with a pistol and bomb, likewise did nothˇ ing as his target came and went. The third man in line, Nedeljko Cabrinovi c, ´ threw his bomb, but it bounced off the folded convertible roof of Franz Ferdinand’s car, detonating beneath the next car in line and wounding 20 people. ˇ Cabrinovi c´ instantly swallowed a cyanide pill and leaped into the Miljacka River, but the poison failed to kill him and a furious mob dragged him from the water, beating him before police arrested him and hauled him off to jail. The motorcade, meanwhile, sped past assassins Cvjetko Popovic, ´ Gavrilo Princip, and Trifun Grabež and reached the town hall without further incident.

FRANZ FERDINAND

After an angry exchange with Sarajevo’s mayor, protesting his “outrageous” welcome to the city, Ferdinand delivered his scheduled speech, then announced his plan to visit victims of the morning’s bombing at Sarajevo Hospital. The motorcade left city hall at 10:45 A.M., but Governor Oskar Potiorek forgot to tell Ferdinand’s driver, Leopold Lojka, that he—Potiorek—wished the procession to travel along Appel Quay. Lojka turned onto Franz Josef Street instead, coincidentally passing a delicatessen where plotter Gavrilo Princip had stopped to eat after the bungled ambush. There, Lojka Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand’s murder trigtook another wrong turn, then gered the First World War in 1914. (Bettmann/ stalled the car while trying to Corbis) reverse and change directions. Princip seized his unexpected second chance, rushing the open car and shooting Ferdinand in the throat, then wounding Duchess Sophie in the abdomen. Police instantly seized him, but the damage was done. Sophie died en route to the hospital, and her husband bled to death 10 minutes later. Franz Ferdinand was born in Graz, Austria, on December 18, 1863, the eldest son of Archduke Karl Ludwig, nephew of Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. His cousin, Crown Prince Rudolf, committed suicide in 1889, leaving Ferdinand’s father next in line for the throne, but typhoid fever killed Karl Ludwig seven years later, making Ferdinand the heir presumptive. Far from politics, however, Ferdinand’s primary passion seemed to be hunting: his diaries listed some 300,000 kills, and 100,000 trophies were displayed at his castle in Konopištˇe, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). His political philosophies remain obscure, and proved to be irrelevant in any case. Ferdinand’s assassination is universally regarded as the trigger incident for World War I. Austria-Hungary quickly declared war against Serbia, setting off a chain reaction as Serbia’s allies—the Triple Entente of France, Britain, and Russia—responded with declarations of war against Austria-Hungary. That, in turn, drove the other Central Powers—Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and the kingdom of Bavaria—to support Austria-Hungary by declaring war against the

157

158

FR ANZ FERDINAND

Triple Entente. Over the next four years, the global conflict would claim an estimated 16.6 million lives, with countless more wounded or missing. All of the conspirators in Ferdinand’s assassination were eventually captured. Twenty-five defendants faced trial at Sarajevo in October 1914, with 16 conˇ victed. Danilo Ilic, ´ Veljko Cubrilovi c, ´ and Mihaijlo Jovanovic´ were sentenced to death and hanged in February 1915. Two other condemned defendants, Jakov Milovic´ and Nedjo Kerovic, ´ won commutation of their sentences to life imprisonment and 20 years, respectively. The others receiving prison terms inˇ cluded Mitar Kerovic´ (life); Nedeljko Cabrinovi c, ´ Gavrilo Princip, and Trifko ˇ Grabež (20 years); Vaso Cubrilovic´ (16 years); Cvjetko Popovic´ (13 years);

THE BLACK HAND The Black Hand was a secret society organized by a group of seven Serbian army officers on September 6, 1901, pledged to unite all territories annexed by Austria-Hungary that contained significant Serb populations. (It should not be confused with the “Black Hand” extortion gangs led by members of the Mafia and Camorra that preyed on Italian immigrants to the United States between the 1880s and the 1920s.) The group’s first target was King Alexander I of Serbia, assassinated with his consort Draga Mašin in June 1903, by Black Hand founder Captain Dragutin Dimitrijevic; ´ and several confederates. Five years later, in October 1908, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, prompting creation of two larger resistance groups. One, called Narodna Odbrana (“National Defense”), focused Serbian anger against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the other— Mlada Bosna (“Young Bosnia”)—served ethnic Bosnians. Narodna Odbrana hatched multiple plots to kill the king of Montenegro during 1908–1909, but none were successful. The final “Black Hand” organization—properly known as Ujedinjenje ili Smrt (“Unification or Death”)—was founded by 10 conspirators on May 9, 1911, gaining an estimated 2,500 members by 1914. Comprised of separate three-to-five-member cells, it required new members to vow that “I, by entering into the society, do hereby swear by the Sun which shineth upon me, by the Earth which feedeth me, by God, by the blood of my forefathers, by my honor and by my life, that from this moment onward and until my death, I shall faithfully serve the task of this organisation and that I shall at all times be prepared to bear for it any sacrifice.” After sparking World War I with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Black Hand was engulfed in the resulting carnage and dissolved sometime before war’s end in 1918.

FRANZ FERDINAND

Lazar Djukic´ and Ivo Kranjcevic´ (10 years); Cvijan Stjepanovic´ (7 years); and Marko Perin and Branko Zagorac (3 years). A second trial disposed of four more plotters in March 1917. Muhamed Mehmedbašic, ´ who had failed to throw his bomb as planned, received a 15-year sentence, but was pardoned in 1919. Three Serbian soldiers linked to the conspiratorial “Black Hand” movement—Colonel Ljuba Vulovic, ´ Captain Dragutin Dimitrijevic, ´ and Rade Malobabic—were ´ sentenced to death and executed by firing squad in June 1917, after paying court costs and fees for the transportation of witnesses. Further Reading Brook-Shepherd, Gordon. Archduke of Sarajevo: The Romance and Tragedy of Franz Ferdinand of Austria. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1984. Cassels, Lavender. The Archduke and the Assassin: Sarajevo, June 28th, 1914. New York: Stein & Day, 1985. Dolph Owings, W. A. The Sarajevo Trial. Chapel Hill, NC: Documentary Publications, 1984. Remak, Joachim. Sarajevo: The Story of a Political Murder. New York: Criterion, 1959. Smith, David. One Morning in Sarajevo: 28 June 1914. St. Albans, United Kingdom: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2008. Strauss, Roberta. The Desperate Act: The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968.

159

This page intentionally left blank

G GADDAFI, MUAMMAR (1942–2011) On February 17, 2011, mass protests erupted in Libya against the regime of “Brotherly Leader” Muammar Gaddafi, the nation’s dictator since 1969. The state’s brutal response, including alleged importation of Ghanaian mercenaries, prompted all-out civil war and intervention by elements of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Officially deposed and stripped of international recognition by mid-July, Gaddafi fought on from hiding until October 20, when his troops made a last-ditch stand against opponents from the National Transitional Council (NTC) in the Battle of Sirte. That morning, NATO aircraft intercepted a satellite phone call from Gaddafi and fired on his motorcade, two miles outside of Sirte. With their vehicles disabled, Gaddafi and others sought refuge in nearby houses, where they were quickly surrounded by NTC soldiers. Conflicting accounts of Gaddafi’s demise claim that he was wounded by gunfire or grenade shrapnel, then captured alive, whereupon he was beaten, stabbed, and shot at close range, with his body displayed on the hood of a car. Gaddafi’s son, Mutassim, died in the same engagement. Born in Qasr Abu Hadi, near the site of his desperate last stand, in June 1942, Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi attended a Muslim elementary school, participated in anti-British demonstrations during the 1956 Suez Crisis, and graduated from the Benghazi Military University Academy in 1966, before pursuing further studied in Europe. He attended Britain’s Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, then returned to Libya and joined the army’s engineering corps, rising to the rank of lieutenant in 1969. On September 1 of that year, while King Idris was touring Greece, Gaddafi led a bloodless military coup d’état that abolished the Libyan monarchy. Assuming the rank of colonel, Gaddafi proclaimed himself head of state, ruling for the next 42 years under ever-changing titles that included chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, prime minister, secretary general of the General People’s Congress, and Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution. Once in power, Gaddafi ordered evacuation of U.S. and British military bases in Libya, demanded an increased share of Western oil drilling proceeds from 50 to 79 percent, expelled Italian settlers, and replaced the Gregorian calendar with an Islamic version, renaming the months to suit himself (August became “Hannibal,” July became “Nasser,” and so on). After a lengthy “contemplative

162

GADDAFI, MUA M M AR

Rebels killed Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in February 2011. (Associated Press)

exile,” Gaddafi published The Green Book, dictating his views on Islamic law and advocating direct rule by People’s Committees, while he retained power as head of state and commander in chief of the armed forces. Using oil profits to develop his country, Gaddafi increased Libya’s literacy rate from 10 to 90 percent, established equal rights for women and blacks, and added 20 years to average life expectancy through improved medical care. The reverse side of that coin included cases of arbitrary arrest and detention under Law 73, which restricted freedom of expression. Between 1980 and 1987, Libyan agents murdered at least 25 dissident expatriates, and at home, Gaddafi launched repressive campaigns against Libya’s Berber minority. In foreign affairs, Gaddafi sought to unify the Arab states of North Africa as a single “Great Islamic State of the Sahel.” To that end, he invaded Chad, fought a brief war with Egypt, and organized an Islamic Legion to agitate for Muslim rule as far afield as Lebanon, Syria, Uganda, and Palestine. Gaddafi’s intelligence service also supported terrorist actions abroad, including various raids on Israel and the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland,

GADDAFI, MUAMMAR

in December 1988. Additionally, Gaddafi’s World Revolutionary Center near Benghazi trained Africans who subsequently seized control or led guerrilla actions in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Burkina Faso. Prior to his ultimate downfall, Gaddafi survived at least five other assassination attempts. The first occurred soon after he assumed power in Libya, when the deposed royal family hatched a counterrevolution plan with Britain’s Special Air Service. The plot involved liberating 150 political prisoners from jail in Tripoli, then leaving them to kill Gaddafi, but the United States persuaded England’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS; MI6) to cancel the coup on grounds that Gaddafi was an “acceptable” anticommunist. Seven years later, in 1976, Tunisian television reported that a lone assassin had fired shots at Gaddafi but missed his target. French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing plotted Gaddafi’s death in 1981, collaborating with hostile Egyptian officials, but once again the United States intervened. Five years later, possessed of a new attitude, the U.S. Air Force bombed Gaddafi’s family compound in Tripoli’s Bab al-Azizia Barracks, in retaliation for the terrorist bombing of a Berlin discotheque that wounded 79 U.S. servicemen. In 1993, some 2,000 Libyan soldiers from the Berber Warfalla tribe rebelled against Gaddafi’s regime, claiming discrimination in the ranks, but they were crushed by the air force (dominated by members of Gaddafi’s own Qadhadhfa tribe). Islamic militants attacked Gaddafi’s motorcade near Sirte, in February 1996, prompting Gaddafi to blame Britain’s SIS for the attempt on his life. Robin Cook, then England’s shadow foreign secretary, officially refuted that charge, but told reporters, “We have never denied that we knew of plots against Gaddafi.” In June 1998, Muslim extremists staged a second attack on Gaddafi, near Dirnah, reportedly wounding him in one arm. Two months later, David Shayler, a former agent of Britain’s Security Service (MI5) claimed that MI6 agents had donated £100,000 toward the latest Gaddafi murder plot. Further Reading Forte, Maximilian. Slouching towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa. Montreal: Baraka Books, 2012. Oaks, John. Libya: The History of Gaddafi’s Pariah State. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2012. Pargeter, Alison. Libya: The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012. Sicker, Martin. The Making of a Pariah State: The Adventurist Politics of Muammar Qaddafi. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1987. Simons, Geoff. Libya and the West: From Independence to Lockerbie. Oxford: Centre for Libyan Studies, 2003.

163

164

G A N D H I , I N D I R A P R I YA D A R S H I N I

GANDHI, INDIRA PRIYADARSHINI (1917–1984) On October 30, 1984, Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi visited Odisha, on the Bay of Bengal, and addressed a recent spate of mayhem between Sikhs and Hindus. “I am alive today,” she told her audience. “I may not be there tomorrow. I shall continue to serve till my last breath, and when I die every drop of my blood will strengthen India and keep a united India alive.” The following day, at Gandhi’s home in New Delhi, Sikh bodyguards Beant Singh and Satwant Singh fired 33 shots at the prime minister, striking her 30 times. Other guards returned fire, killing Beant Singh, and Satwant Singh threw down his weapon and surrendered. Gandhi survived to reach the All India Institute of Medical Sciences at 9:30 A.M., but was pronounced dead following surgery, at 2:20 P.M. At trial, Satwant Singh and conspirator Kehar Singh admitted plotting Gandhi’s murder in retaliation for “Operation Blue Star,” a military action that routed Sikh separatists from Amritsar’s Golden Temple in June 2004, claiming at least 575 lives. Both defendants were convicted and condemned, executed by hanging in Delhi on January 6, 1989. Indira Gandhi was born in Allahabad on November 19, 1917, the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s future prime minister. She studied at Britain’s Somerville College, Oxford, but left in 1941 without obtaining a degree. After her father’s death in office, in 1964, she was appointed to serve in India’s upper house, and joined Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s cabinet as minister of information and broadcasting. Shastri’s sudden death in January 1966, perhaps by poisoning, allowed “kingmaker” Kumarasami Kamaraj to install Gandhi as India’s third prime minister, supporting left-wing economic policies at home and demonstrating strong leadership in foreign policy, exemplified by India’s victory in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Gandhi served three terms as prime minister, from 1966 to 1977, when a prolonged state of emergency (officially declared in June 1975) undermined her popularity and led to electoral rejection of her regime in March 1977. The victorious Janata Party’s home minister, Choudhary Charan Singh, ordered Gandhi’s arrest on charges that she “had planned or thought of killing all opposition leaders in jail during the Emergency,” but her long-running trial failed to produce a conviction. Opposition leader Jayaprakash Narayan died in October 1979, effectively dissolving the Janata Party, and Gandhi returned to the prime minister’s office with a landslide victory in January 1980, doubling as minister of defense. Gandhi’s fourth term in office was plagued by monetary crises that saw the value of Indian rupees decline by 40 percent against the U.S. dollar, and by heightened agitation among Sikhs beginning in July 1982. Their occupation of Amritsar’s Golden Temple prompted “Operation Blue Star,” with unofficial estimates of the final death toll running as high as 8,000. That action, in turn, led directly to the plot that claimed Indira Gandhi’s life two years later.

GANDHI, MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND

In the wake of Gandhi’s assassination, anti-Sikh riots swept northern India, killing at least 2,700 persons over a four-day period. Unofficial estimates of the death toll topped 20,000, leading Sikh spokesmen to charge genocide, and the People’s Union for Civil Liberties cited another 50,000 left homeless. In 2011, with Human Rights Watch condemning the government’s persistent failure to prosecute any killers from that rampage, WikiLeaks published classified U.S. diplomatic cables charging India’s National Congress party with complicity in the massacres. That same year, mass graves were discovered in Haryana, dating from the 1984 attacks. Sonia Gandhi, widow of Indira’s son Rajiv, has led the Indian National Congress since 1998. Further Reading Aguiar, Benny. Indira Gandhi: A Political Biography (1966–1984). New Delhi: Vitasta, 2011. Dhar, P. N. Indira Gandhi, the “Emergency,” and Indian Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Frank, Katherine. Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. Gupte, Prane. Vengeance: India after the Assassination of Indira Gandhi. New York: W. W. Norton, 1985.

GANDHI, MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND (1869–1948) On January 30, 1948, Indian nationalist leader Mohandas Gandhi left his home at Birla House, in New Delhi, to attend a prayer meeting. As he walked with several companions, militant Hindu activist Nathuram Vinayak Godse accosted Gandhi and shot him three times in the chest with a .38-caliber pistol. Gandhi collapsed, gasping, Hay Raam (“Oh God!”), and bystanders disarmed Godse and detained him for police. Instead of rushing Gandhi to the hospital, for reasons still unclear, his entourage carried him home, where he died soon after arrival. Eleven suspected conspirators were subsequently jailed with Godse, including his brother Gopal. Nathuram Godse and conspirator Narayan Dattatraya Apte were condemned and hanged together on November 15, 1949, despite pleas for mercy from Gandhi’s two sons and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Three other defendants—Gopal Godse, Shankar Kishtiya, and Madan Lal Pahwa—received life sentences, but Godse and Kishtiya were later acquitted by a higher court. Pahwa remained in prison until 1964. Mohandas Gandhi, later known as Mahatma (“Great Soul”), was born on October 2, 1869, the son of a high official in Porbandar, British India. His household was religiously divided, with his father a Hindu and his mother a devout Jain, convinced that every living being has a soul and is potentially divine.

165

166

GANDHI, MOHANDAS K AR A MCHAND

Married at age 13, by local custom, Gandhi graduated from Samaldas College with marginal grades, then studied law in London from 1888 to 1891, when he was called to the bar of the Inner Temple. Two years later, hired by an Indian firm in South Africa, Gandhi relocated and experienced his first real clash with racism under that British colony’s strict system of apartheid. Immersing himself in the early civil rights struggle, Gandhi founded the Natal Indian Congress in 1894 and was nearly lynched by whites in Durban, three years later, before he was rescued by the poHindu extremists killed Indian nationalist leader lice superintendent’s wife. In Mohandas Gandhi in January 1948. (Getty Images) 1906, he led nonviolent protests against a new law requiring registration of Indian residents, launching a seven-year campaign that saw thousands of Indians shot, beaten, or jailed for acts of civil disobedience before racist leader Jan Smuts agreed to a compromise. Gandhi returned to India in 1915, rising to leadership of the Indian National Congress (INC) by 1920 and constantly pressing for new demands for native self-determination. In World War I, he recruited volunteers for Britain’s Ambulance Corps, while opposing any form of violence and vowing that he “personally will not kill or injure anybody, friend or foe.” In 1918, he led protests against compulsory cultivation of indigo at Champaran, and agitated for relief from taxes after catastrophic flooding in Kheda. The Khilafat Movement of 1919—Islamic protests against the Caliph’s declining world status—allowed Gandhi to seek an alliance with Muslims through foundation of the All-India Muslim Conference. At the same time, he began the first of many “noncooperation” campaigns designed to undermine the British Raj, often countered by official violence such as the Amritsar massacre of May 1919 (379 Indians killed, with 1,100 wounded by British troops). Convicted of sedition in March 1922, Gandhi received a six-year sentence but was freed on medical grounds in February 1924. His next major campaign, in 1930, was an epic march protesting a new tax on salt. At the same time, the INC declared independence from Britain, but the

G A N D H I , R A J I V R AT N A

decree went unrecognized by London and the world at large. More prison time followed for Gandhi, marked by hunger strikes in custody, but it remained for World War II to crack the British Empire, with India winning independence in August 1947. Almost immediately, sectarian riots between Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims claimed an estimated half-million lives, climaxed by partition of the country and creation of Pakistan as a primarily Muslim state. Prior to his murder, Gandhi survived several other assassination attempts. The first, a bombing of his motorcade in Pune on June 25, 1934, wounded nine persons and remains officially unsolved today, with no surviving record of police investigation. Ten years later, in May 1944, Nathuram Godse led a group of 15 to 20 young men who rushed at Gandhi, Godse brandishing a knife, during a prayer meeting at Panchgani. The crowds prevented Godse’s gang from reaching Gandhi, who followed his longstanding policy of refusing to press criminal charges. Nathuram Godse led another group that obstructed Gandhi’s passage from Sevagram to Mumbai on September 9, 1944. Caught with another dagger, Godse was released again, after uttering threats to kill Gandhi. Eight days before Gandhi’s actual murder, at Birla House in New Delhi, the Godse brothers and five others detonated a bomb attached to a podium where Gandhi was scheduled to speak, but its premature blast caused no damage. Confessions secured by police in that case were responsible for most of the charges filed after Gandhi’s slaying on January 28, 1948. In 1982, Sir Richard Attenborough produced and directed an epic motion picture charting the life of Mohandas Gandhi. Starring Ben Kingsley, Gandhi was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won eight, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Costume Design. Further Reading Brown, Judith. Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991. Fisher, Louis. The Life of Mahatma Gandhi. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. Lelyveld, Joseph. Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India. New York: Vintage Books, 2011. Wolpert, Stanley. Gandhi’s Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

GANDHI, RAJIV RATNA (1944–1991) On May 21, 1991, ex–prime minister of India Rajiv Gandhi traveled by motorcade from Madras (now Chennai) to Sriperumbudur, for a campaign rally in support of winning him a second term. As he approached the dais to speak, suicide bomber Thenmozhi “Gayatri” Rajaratnam greeted Gandhi and stooped

167

168

GA N D H I, R A J I V R AT N A

to touch his feet—a common gesture of respect—then detonated a belt of RDX (an abbreviation of Research Department eXplosive, formally cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine, also called cyclonite, hexogen, or T4) plastic explosive hidden beneath her dress, killing Gandhi, herself, and 14 bystanders. Rajaratnam was identified as a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a Sri Lankan separatist group angered by India’s creation of a peacekeeping force in the island nation’s civil war. LTTE spokesmen denied responsibility for Gandhi’s assassination, but India’s Supreme Court blamed the murder on Gandhi’s August 1990 declaration that he would disarm the group if he regained the prime minister’s office. Twenty-six LTTE members were subsequently convicted and sentenced to die as conspirators, but 22 of those capital sentences were reduced to prison terms on appeal. Born in Bombay (now Mumbai) on August 20, 1944, Rajiv Gandhi was the grandson of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and son of former prime minister Indira Gandhi. He studied at Trinty College, Cambridge, from 1962 to 1965, then for a year at London’s Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, but obtained degrees from neither. In 1966, when his mother became prime minister, Gandhi joined Indian Airlines as a pilot. He eschewed politics until June 1980, with the death of his brother Sanjay, who served their mother as a close advisor and was touted as the next head of the Indian National Congress (INC) party. Stepping into Sanjay’s shoes reluctantly, Rajiv stood for elections to his late brother’s parliamentary seat from Amethi, in Uttar Pradesh, and won with some 200,000 votes. In 1984, following his mother’s assassination, Gandhi led the INC to the greatest landslide victory in Indian history, himself elected as the nation’s youngest prime minister, and INC members claimed 411 of parliament’s 552 seats. Despite that strong beginning, Gandhi’s tenure was beset by crises. In 1987, he sent an Indian Peace Keeping Force to Sri Lanka for the first time, setting in motion events that led to his eventual killing by Tamil militants. A year later, he organized “Operation Cactus” to defeat a coup d’état in Maldives, led by secessionist members of another Tamil group, the People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam. Meanwhile, the Bofors scandal broke, with Gandhi and several other high-ranking INC members accused of taking bribes to approve India’s purchase of artillery pieces from Sweden’s Aktiebolag Bofors-Gullspång. No charges were filed against Gandhi, but his administration brought pressure to kill media coverage of the unfolding scandal and thereby tarnished his reputation for incorruptibility and doubtless contributed to his electoral defeat in December 1989. Determined to regain his office, Gandhi began campaigning well before new elections were announced in 1991. A point of strength, as he perceived it, was his stand on Sri Lanka. Successor V. P. Singh had withdrawn Indian peacekeepers from Sri Lanka in December 1989, after losing 1,100 soldiers and killing

GARCÍA MORENO, GABRIEL

some 5,000 Tamil civilians, but the violence continued unabated. Investigators generally agree that Gandhi’s promise to resume policing of Sri Lanka led directly to his death. Six months after the assassination, in November 1991, Schweizer Illustrierte (Swiss Illustrated) magazine published an exposé on “black money” stashed by 15 leaders of various “Third World” nations. Gandhi was among those named, accused of hiding 2.5 billion Swiss francs in Zurich. Critics raised the issue in parliament a month later, but Gandhi’s name was subsequently expunged from the record of those proceedings. Another posthumous scandal broke in 1992, when two newspapers—The Hindu and The Times of India—alleged that Gandhi had received cash payments from the Soviet KGB. Russia’s new government confirmed the payments as an action “necessary for the Soviet ideological interest.” Despite those blemishes to his record, Gandhi holds the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, thus far bestowed on 41 recipients (as of 2011). The list also includes Gandhi’s grandfather and mother. Further Reading Kaarthikeyan, D. R., and Radhavinod Raju. Triumph of Truth: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination—The Investigation. Elgin, IL: New Dawn Press, 2004. Mehta, Ved. Rajiv Gandhi and Rama’s Kingdom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996. Nugent, Nicholas. Rajiv Gandhi: Son of a Dynasty. London: BBC Publications, 1991. Sharma, Rajeev. Beyond the Tigers: Tracking Rajiv Gandhi’s Assassination. New Delhi: Kaveri Books, 1998.

GARCÍA Y MORENO Y MORÁN DE BUITRÓN, GABRIEL GREGORIO FERNANDO JOSÉ MARÍA (1821–1875) Ecuadorian president Gabriel García Moreno anticipated danger when he was elected to a third term in 1875. A staunch conservative and ardent member of the Roman Catholic Church, he had angered liberal and leftist elements during his 12 years in office, while disgruntling certain office holders through his opposition to corruption. On August 5, 1875, a priest warned García Moreno that his death was “decreed by the Freemasons,” who were “going to try and carry out their plot at once.” The president acknowledged receipt of previous similar warnings, telling the priest that his only hope “was to prepare himself to appear before God.” The next day, August 6, four men attacked García Moreno on the porch of the presidential palace, three firing revolvers, and the fourth—Faustino Rayo, dismissed from a government post by García Moreno for bribery—struck the president repeatedly with a machete. The gunshots

169

170

GA R C Í A M O R E N O, GA B R I E L

only grazed their target, but Rayo’s blade split the president’s skull and nearly severed one arm. Soldiers arriving on the scene shot Rayo as he fled, but the other three conspirators escaped. Peruvian currency found in Rayo’s pockets suggested a murder for hire, and although no other plotters were identified, officials declared that García Moreno was slain “by members of a secret society,” presumably Freemasons. Born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on December 24, 1821, Gabriel García Moreno was the son of an aristocratic Spanish merchant. He studied law and theology at the University of Quito, preparing himself for the priesthood. He proceeded to the minor orders and shaved his head in the traditional clerical tonsure, but friends persuaded him to seek a secular career instead. At graduation from the university, in 1844, he was admitted to the bar and simultaneously operated as a freelance journalist, in opposition to the liberal regime of President Vicente Ramón Roca. Returning from travels abroad in 1856, García Moreno found Ecuador’s government in the hands of liberal, anticlerical elements, on the verge of civil war with strictly religious members of the Conservative Party. García Moreno joined Jerónimo Carrión and Pacífico Chiriboga in opposing incumbent president Francisco Garcia Robles, and General Guillermo Franco, commanding the district of Guayas, sought to seize power for himself, bargaining with Peruvian president Ramón Castilla to trade land for military support. Defeated at the Battle of Guayaquil, in September 1860, Franco fled to Peru, and García Moreno assumed command of a provisional government in Quito. Similar governing bodies seized control in the provinces of Cuenca, Guayas, Loja, Cañar, and Azuay. That chaos was resolved, and Ecuador reunified, in January 1861, with García Moreno’s election as interim president. A general election, held four months later, confirmed him as president for a full four-year term. García Moreno’s conservatism and outspoken support for the Catholic Church alienated liberals throughout Ecuador and beyond, but he maintained iron-fisted control. Vice President Rafael Carvajal Guzmán succeeded García Moreno in August 1865, but lasted only two months before he was replaced by Jerónimo Carrión. The seesaw world of Ecuadorean politics saw García Moreno reelected as president in January 1869, deposed in May of that same year, then elected once again in August 1869. That year, he drafted a new constitution making Catholicism the nation’s official religion, welcomed fugitive Jesuit priests from neighboring countries, and signed a law banning secret societies, which Freemason’s viewed as a personal attack on their order. Liberals also condemned his use of Indian slave labor to build new roads and other public works. Perhaps anticipating his own murder, García Moreno wrote to Pope Piius IX, seeking a special blessing prior to his scheduled inauguration in August 1875. That letter read:

GARFIELD, JAMES ABRAM

I wish to obtain your blessing before that day, so that I may have the strength and light which I need so much in order to be unto the end a faithful son of our Redeemer, and a loyal and obedient servant of His Infallible Vicar. Now that the Masonic Lodges of the neighboring countries, instigated by Germany, are vomiting against me all sorts of atrocious insults and horrible calumnies, now that the Lodges are secretly arranging for my assassination, I have more need than ever of the divine protection so that I may live and die in defense of our holy religion and the beloved republic which I am called once more to rule.

While prescient, that plea failed to protect him from his enemies. Further Reading Berthe, Augustine. Garcia Moreno. London: Burns and Oates, 1889. Henderson, Peter. Gabriel García Moreno and Conservative State Formation in the Andes. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008. Larson, Brooke. Trials of Nation Making: Liberalism, Race, and Ethnicity in the Andes, 1810–1910. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

GARFIELD, JAMES ABRAM (1831–1881) President James Garfield was scheduled to leave Washington, D.C., for his summer vacation on July 2, 1881, following a stop to speak at his alma matter, Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Accompanied by sons Harry and James, he walked to the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station on Sixth Street, where Secretary of State James Blaine and Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln waited to bid him farewell. Also waiting was Charles Julius Guiteau, a failed lawyer and preacher who had dabbled on the fringes of Garfield’s presidential campaign, then demanded an ambassadorship as his presumed reward. Secretary Blaine had personally banned him from the White House seven weeks earlier, on May 1. Guiteau, deemed insane by his own family, later claimed that God had ordered him to kill the “ungrateful” president. He shot Garfield twice with a .44-caliber revolver, before police seized him. President Garfield survived until September 19, finally succumbing to infection apparently caused by incompetent medical treatment. Convicted of Garfield’s murder in January 1882, Guiteau danced up the gallows steps and saluted spectators before he was hanged on June 30, 1882. James Garfield was born on an Ohio farm on November 19, 1831, the youngest of five children, raised by his mother alone when his father died before Garfield’s second birthday. He attended Geauga Seminary, then worked as a teacher before enrolling at Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College), completing his studied at Williams College. He then returned to the Eclectic Institute as a teacher, later serving as principal from 1857 to 1860, campaigning at the same time for Republican abolitionist candidates. That led

171

172

G A R F I E L D, J A M E S A B R A M

to his election as a state senator, but he stepped down in 1861 to join the Union Army as a lieutenant colonel, commanding the 42nd Ohio Infantry. In October 1862, while still on active duty, Garfield won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, then returned to military campaigning, but still won reelection to a second term in 1864. Garfield finished the war as a brigadier general and set his sights on higher political office, but progress took time. In 1880, rather than seek a 10th term in the House, Garfield negotiated to support Republican presidential hopeful John Sherman, in exchange for a President James Garfield was shot by a disgruntled U.S. Senate seat. At the party’s convention, however, delegates ex-supporter. (Library of Congress) deadlocked in a three-way split between Sherman, James Blaine, and former two-term president Ulysses Grant. Finally, the convention chose Garfield as a “dark horse” candidate to heal divisions in the party, and he defeated Democratic opponent Winfield Scott Hancock by a perilously narrow margin of 4,446,158 popular votes to 4,444,260, each candidate carrying 19 states. Garfield’s victory in the Electoral College was more decisive, with 214 votes to Hancock’s 155. Inaugurated on March 4, 1881, Garfield was shot four months later and died after only 200 days in office. A strong advocate of civil service reform, Garfield achieved that goal posthumously, with passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in January 1883. Vice President Chester Arthur succeeded Garfield, then lost the GOP’s (Grand Old Party) 1884 nomination to Jamed Blaine—who, in turn, was defeated by Democrat Grover Cleveland. Part of Charles Guiteau’s preserved brain is displayed at Philadelphia’s College of Physicians, in the Mütter Museum. The remainder, with some of his bones, plus Garfield’s spine and some ribs, are housed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in the National Museum of Health and Medicine. Despite the country’s second presidential slaying

GAULLE, CHARLES ANDRÉ JOSEPH MARIE DE

within 16 years, Congress took no steps to mount a special guard over the president until after the murder of William McKinley, in 1901. Further Reading Ackerman, Kenneth. Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of James A. Garfield. New York: Avalon Publishing, 2004. Millard, Candice. Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President. New York: Anchor Books, 2012. Peskin, Allan. Garfield. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1978.

GAULLE, CHARLES ANDRÉ JOSEPH MARIE DE (1890–1970)—ATTEMPTED Charles de Gaulle once declared, “I am France,” but many fellow Frenchmen and outsiders violently disagreed. During a Middle Eastern confrontation, U.S. president Harry Truman opined that “those French ought to be taken out and castrated.” British prime minister Winston Churchill branded de Gaulle “one of the greatest dangers to European peace” and “a great danger to Great Britain.” When Churchill’s wife tried to mediate between them, urging de Gaulle “not [to] hate your friends more than you hate your enemies,” de Gaulle replied, “France has no friends, only interests.” Born at Lille, in northern France, on November 22, 1890, Charles de Gaulle reportedly chose a military career at age eight, after suffering alleged traumatic humiliation when British troops expelled French forces from the upper Nile region. He spent four years at the elite Special Military School of Saint-Cyr, later serving in both World Wars and emerging from the second as prime minister of France. De Gaulle resigned that office on January 20, 1946, then returned with the collapse of the Fourth Republic in May 1958. During the Algerian Revolution, when de Gaulle served as prime minister and minister of defense (1958–1959), then held a term as president (1959– 1969), he both encouraged and concealed acts of brutality, including the Paris massacre of 40-plus Algerian protesters—some reports claim 200—in October 1961. Then, in March 1962, he alienated supporters of French colonialism in Algeria with the Évian Accords, pronouncing Algeria an independent nation in July. That waffling behavior enraged members of a far-right terrorist group, the Organisation de l’armée secrète (OAS; Secret Army Organization) and fueled conspiracies to kill de Gaulle. In April 1961, a “Generals’ putsch” endeavored to depose de Gaulle and establish an anticommunist military junta, but the campaign was thwarted after five days of fighting in Algiers. The bungled coup’s ringleaders—retired generals Maurice Challe, Raoul Salan, and André Zeller—were charged with treason

173

174

GAULLE, CHARLES ANDRÉ JOSEPH M ARIE DE

and condemned, Salan being tried in absentia (captured in April 1962). President de Gaulle granted the rebels amnesty in July 1968, with Challe and Zeller restored to their former ranks in November 1982. Meanwhile, the OAS made multiple attempts to kill de Gaulle in France. Whereas some accounts claim 44 murder conspiracies in all, two in particular stand out. On September 8, 1961, de Gaulle and his wife traveled 150 miles by car from Paris to their country home, La Boisserie, in Colombeyles-Deux-Eglises. At one point on the road, a propane tank packed with 100 pounds of plastic explosive lay concealed under a sand pile, with a canister containing 15 liters of napalm. Detonated by remote control as de Gaulle sped past in his chauffeur-driven Citroën DS, the bomb spewed burning gasoline across the highway, but the de Gaulles and their driver escaped injury. On August 22, 1962, OAS member Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry, a lieutenant colonel in the French air force, staged another ambush for de Gaulle in PetitClamart, a suburb of Paris. In an eerie replay of the last attempt, de Gaulle and his wife were en route once more to Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, when OAS thugs sprayed their car with submachine guns, firing 187 bullets. Once again, the sturdy Citroën DS saved its passengers, despite four flattened tires and a shattered rear window. Two police escorts died in the fusillade, but President de Gaulle’s sole injury was a scratch on one finger, suffered while brushing broken glass from his jacket. Bastien-Thiry was traveling in England, on OAS business, when his men botched the ambush. Police arrested him on his return to France, and he faced trial by court-martial with two accomplices, convened on January 28, 1963. Bastien-Thiry’s defense team included Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour, a far-right politician who would challenge de Gaulle for the presidency in 1965, placing

THE DAY OF THE JACKAL In 1971, British author Frederick Forsyth published his first novel, The Day of the Jackal, depicting a fictional Organisation de l’armée secrète (OAS) plot to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. The plot follows professional killer Charles Calthrop, known as “The Jackal,” through the preparation and final execution of a plan to shoot de Gaulle on Liberation Day (August 25), in Paris. The Day of the Jackal became a best seller, and was honored by the Mystery Writers of America with its Edgar Award for best novel in 1972. The story has been adapted for film three times: in 1973, with its original title and plot; in 1988, as August 1, an Indian political thriller in the Malayalam language; and in 1997, as The Jackal, wherein a Russian

GAULLE, CHARLES ANDRÉ JOSEPH MARIE DE

mafia boss hires a killer to assassinate the U.S. vice president. A British newspaper, The Guardian, dubbed international terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez “The Jackal” in 1975, after police raiders found a copy of Forsyth’s novel in the fugitive’s London apartment. Twenty years later, a Hebrew translation turned up in the possession of Yigal Amir, right-wing assassin of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. At the time, police suggested that Amir used the novel as a “how to” manual for murder, though in fact he used a pistol to kill Rabin at close range, rather than employing a sniper rifle.

fourth in a field of six candidates. The defense adopted a two-pronged strategy, first claiming that Bastien-Thiry only planned to “capture” de Gaulle and hold him for trial on hypothetical charges, simultaneously claiming that his death would have been justified as payback for the “genocide” of European residents in newly independent Algeria. Convicted on March 3, Bastien-Thiry was condemned with codefendants Alain de La Tocnaye and Buisines Prevost. De Gaulle later pardoned Tocnaye and Prevost, the actual shooters, but BastienThiry died before a firing squad on March 11, 1963. The OAS dissolved after Bastien-Thiry’s execution, but some of its members remained active as terrorists, linked to the murders of Parisian leftists Henri Curiel in 1978 and Pierre Goldman in 1979, but the last known plot against de Gaulle was hatched by a group of radical students in Paris. On July 1, 1966— the same day de Gaulle was featured on the cover of Time magazine—the president prepared to leave France for a visit to the Soviet Union. Parked along the Boulevard Montparnasse, his route to Orly Airport, a car packed with nearly a ton of dynamite waited to detonate by remote control, but the signal never came. The would-be bombers, members of a self-styled National Resistance Council, were arrested the night of June 30, during a robbery intended to raise money for their flight abroad after they killed the president. Further Reading Aussaresses, Paul. The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Algeria, 1955–1957. New York: Enigma Books, 2010. Fenby, Jonathan. The General: Charles de Gaulle and the France He Saved. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010. Lacouture, Jean. De Gaulle: The Ruler 1945–1970. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. Le Sueur, James. Uncivil War: Intellectuals and Identity Politics during the Decolonization of Algeria. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005. Williams, Charles. The Last Great Frenchman: A Life of General De Gaulle. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993.

175

176

G AV I R I A C O R R E A , G U I L L E R M O

GAVIRIA CORREA, GUILLERMO (1962–2003) On April 17, 2002, the governor of Colombia’s Antioquia Department, Guillermo Gaviria Correa, embarked on an 85-mile march against violence that had plagued his province for years. He was accompanied by Gilberto Echeverri Mejía, an electrical engineer whom Gaviria had named the district’s peace commissioner, with mayors from several towns and roughly 1,000 civilians. The march began in Medellín, proceeding toward Caicedo, but was stopped on April 21 by members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who kidnapped Gaviria and Echeverri at gunpoint. Guerrillas held the two men hostage in a mountain stronghold until May 5, 2003, then killed both—with eight other captives—during a bungled rescue attempt by Colombian soldiers. The eldest of eight children in a prominent Medellín family, born on November 27, 1962, Guillermo Gaviria Correa earned a bachelor’s degree from the Colorado School of Mines in 1988, then returned home to work at Cerro Matoso S.A., mining company located near Montelíbano, in the northern Colombian province of Córdoba. Six years later, President Ernesto Samper Pizano chose Gaviria to head the new Institute of National Roads, supervising construction and repair of Colombian highways and bridges. Gaviria held that post until he was elected governor of Antioquia Department, taking office in 2000. Violence was a critical issue in Antioquia and throughout Colombia at large. Aside from bloodshed related to the country’s multibillion-dollar cocaine trade, revolutionary groups such as the FARC and the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Army) controlled an estimated 30 to 35 percent of Colombia by 1999, operating from secret bases in the Andes to raid villages and government outposts over an area of some 190,000 square miles. In addition to focusing on housing, education, nutrition, reforestation, and administrative transparency, Governor Gaviria launched a “Congruent Peace Plan” based on the teachings of nonviolent leaders Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., embodied by the Peace Commission formed in 2001. Before his abduction, he was also elected to preside over the Colombian Federation of Governors. While a prisoner of the FARC, Gaviria kept a journal that was subsequently published under the title Diary of a Kidnapped Colombian Governor. One entry, written as an open letter to his constituents, read: Dear People of Antioquia: The trust you placed in me as your Governor obliges me to seek, without rest, the roads to overcome the pain that the use of violence and injustice cause to our people. This search has moved me to undertake the Nonviolent March of Reconciliation and Solidarity with the people of Caicedo. With this pilgrimage I invite you to apply the strategy of nonviolence.

GEGEEN KHAN, EMPEROR YINGZONG OF YUAN

The philosophy of nonviolence brings spirits closer, brings souls closer, brings human beings closer and will allow us, together, to build true roads to social transformation. Nonviolence is not simply saying no to violence, because if so it would end up being confused with passively accepting suffering, injustice and abuse. Nonviolence is a way to overcome violence, investigating and discovering just means to oppose injustice. Nonviolence is not only about neutralizing all forms of direct violence, but also all manifestations of structural violence, because it builds peace through justice and solidarity and helps to prevent future forms of violence, by offering methods and models of peaceful struggle to those social groups left out and sacrificed by unbalanced power and systemic maladjustment. If you are reading this letter it is surely because the FARC were not able to listen or understand my message. If I have been murdered, my spirit will be praying for peace in Colombia. In this case I hope that Aníbal, my brother, will take up the flag I have been carrying to build a new Antioquia.

Gaviria received a posthumous nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, but the prize went instead to Wangari Maathai of Kenya. In accordance with Gaviria’s last wish, his brother sought and won the governor’s office in Antioquia, and was named Colombia’s best governor in 2007 by the national nonpartisan institute Colombia Líder. Aníbal Gaviria’s noted accomplishments included a 60-percent reduction in the district’s murder rate, construction of elementary and intermediate schools for an additional 90,000 students, improved housing for 110,000 low-income families, and provision of potable water to an additional 72 communities. Further Reading Gaviria Correa, Guillermo. Diary of a Kidnapped Colombian Governor. Telford, PA: DreamSeeker Books, 2010. Len, Juanita. Country of Bullets: Chronicles of War. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009. Roldán, Mary. “‘Cambio de Armas’: Negotiating Alternatives to Violence in the Oriente Antioqueño.” In Colombia: Building Peace in a Time of War. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2009.

GEGEEN KHAN, EMPEROR YINGZONG OF YUAN (1303–1323) On September 4, 1323, five jealous princes staged a coup d’état against Emperor Geegen Khan, the ninth Grand Khan of the Mongol Yuan Empire. Led by Tegshi, the adopted son of recently deceased grand councilor Temuder, the other key participants included Princes Altan Bukha, Bolad, Kulud Bukha, Ulus Bukha, and Orlug Temur. Geegen Khan—also known by his birth name, Shidebala—had stopped at Nanpo (in present-day North Korea) while en route to his summer palace in Dadu (now Beijing), the imperial

177

178

GEGEEN KHAN, EM PERO R YI NGZONG OF YUAN

capital. While at Nanpo, the rebels attacked Shidebala’s party, killing the emperor and his companion Baiju, recently named to succeed Temuder as grand councilor. Born on February 22, 1303, Shidebala was the oldest son of Ayurbarwada Buyantu Khan, Emperor Renzong of Yuan, who had captured the throne by devious means. Ayurbarwada’s elder brother, Khayishan, had ruled as Külüg Khan, Emperor Wuzong of Yuan, from June 1307 until January 1311, when terminal illness forced him to confront his own mortality. Ayurbarwada promised that if Khayishan named him successor to the throne, Ayurbarwada would anoint Khayishan’s eldest son as crown prince and next in line to rule. When Khayishan died, however, Ayurbarwada banished his sons to the hinterlands and purged the court of any loyal adherents to the former emperor. Formally crowned in April 1311, Ayurbarwada ruled for eight years, dying from natural causes on March 1, 1320. Successor Shidebala—dubbed Gegeen (“enlightened”) Khan—intended to continue various political reforms initiated by his father, but he inherited Grand Councilor Temuder, formerly dismissed for corruption in 1317, but reinstated by the new emperor’s powerful grandmother, Empress Targi, upon the death of her son Ayurbarwada. Temuder quickly ordered the execution of several persons he deemed responsible for his prior embarrassment, joining Empress Dowager Targi to manipulate and dominate the new teenage emperor. Gegeen Khan was chafing under control of his elders by October 1322, when Temuder died in Dadu. He was married by then, to Empress Sugabala, but their union produced no children. At Temuder’s death, influenced by Confucian scholars who had detested the tyrannical grand councilor, Shidebala appointed Baiju—a man of his own age and a descendant of the honored general Mukhali—to succeed Temuder. Relieved by his grandmother’s death near year’s end, Gegeen Khan embarked on a more aggressive course of reform that placed him fatally at odds with Temuder’s protégés and the traditional Mongol warrior elite. That conflict led inevitably to his murder and plunged the Yuan Empire into a decade of chaos. With the assassination accomplished, ringleader Tegshi asked Yesün Temür, a great-grandson of Kublai Khan, to assume the throne, and while agreeing, first annihilated Teghsi’s faction before taking office as Emperor Taiding of Yuan. Crowned in October 1323, Yesün Temür Khan ruled as emperor until his sudden death in August 1328. Son Ragibagh Khan succeeded him, but was deposed and presumably executed (his body was not found) by rival Tug Temür in mid-November of the same year. Tug Temür then occupied the throne as Jayaatu Khan, Emperor Wenzong of Yuan, but died in September 1332, leaving six-year-old Rinchinbal Khan in charge of the swiftly declining Yuan Empire.

GEORGE I OF GREECE

Further Reading Brook, Timothy. The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2010. Twitchett, Denis, Herbert Franke, and John Fairbank. The Cambridge History of China: Volume 6, Alien Regimes and Border States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

GEORGE I OF GREECE (1845–1913) When Montenegro declared war on Turkey in October 1912, igniting the First Balkan War, King George I of Greece was determined to salvage his country’s reputation, soiled by humiliation in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. On November 9, Greek troops liberated Thessaloniki, the nation’s second-largest city, from Ottoman troops, prompting George to plan a triumphant victory celebration while the general fighting continued elsewhere for another six months. On March 18, 1913, while strolling unguarded near the White Tower of Thessaloniki, King George was shot in the back at close range and killed instantly by Alexandros Schinas, described in press reports as a member of an unnamed “Socialist organization.” In custody, Schinas initially refused to speak, but was “forced to undergo examinations”—understood to mean torture—finally producing a confused confession that mixed anarchist sentiments with a claim that “he had killed the King because he refused to give him money.” On May 6, 1913, Schinas fell to his death from an upper window of Thessaloniki’s police station. Authorities proclaimed his death a suicide, but some critics suspected he was dropped by officers. Conspiracy theories linking Schinas to plotters from Bulgaria, Germany, or AustriaHungary were never substantiated. George I began life as a Danish prince, born in Copenhagen on December 24, 1845, the King George I of Greece, shot by an alleged Socialsecond son of Prince Christian ist assassin in March 1913. (Bettmann/Corbis)

179

180

GEORGE I OF GREECE

of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, later King Christian IX of Denmark. Originally known as Prince Vilhelm (William), he joined the Royal Danish Navy at 17, then was elected king of the Hellenes on March 30, 1863, by the Greek National Assembly, filling a throne left vacant since King Otto was deposed by a coup in October 1862. That twist of fate made Vilhelm—now George—a king eight full months before his father ascended to the throne of Denmark. In fact, however, George did not arrive in Athens until October 30, 1863, two weeks before his father’s coronation in Copenhagen. George’s reign of nearly half a century began with lengthy constitutional debates, climaxed in November 1864 with the creation of a unicameral legislature and institution of Europe’s first universal male suffrage by secret ballots. The constitution subordinated royal authority to that of duly-elected officials, but it failed to eradicate corruption or political infighting, with the result that between 1864 and 1910 Greece endured 21 elections and 70 government administrations, the longest lasting for 18 months. On the international stage, George used his relationship with brother-in-law Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later Britain’s King Edward VII) to settle territorial disputes between Greece and Britain. George’s marriage to Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia produced five sons and two daughters, all of whom married into royal families of Prussia, France, Russia, and Britain, thus creating an international dynasty. His relationship with Russia served George well after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, when he laid claim to Cyprus, Epirus, and Thessaly over strident Ottoman objections, seeing those territorial gains confirmed in 1880. In February 1897, he sent his son, Prince George, to liberate Crete from Turkish rule, but Greek forces lost that campaign in April. On February 26, 1898, two men identified only as Giorgis and Karditza fired rifles at King George’s open carriage, while George, his daughter Marie, and a groom were returning to Athens from the seaside resort of Phalerum. The groom and both horses were wounded, while George stood in plain view of the gunmen, brandishing a cane and shielding Marie. The nervous snipers missed their target and fled, but Karditza surrendered the following day, describing himself to police as a member of a secret society pledged to kill George in retribution for Greece’s recent military loss to Turkey. Giorgis was captured on February 28, but no information on the disposition of their case is presently available. The death of Britain’s Queen Victoria, in January 1901, left George I as the second-longest-reigning European monarch, bound by marriage to Victoria’s successor, King Edward VII. By 1908, George faced opposition from the Stratiotikos Syndesmos (“Military League”), a group of army officers who sought to strip royal family members of their military commissions. The league staged an abortive coup d’état on August 28, 1909, beginning at the Goudi barracks outside Athens, but loyal troops frustrated the rebellion, whereupon George gave his support to revision of the Greek constitution.

GOEBEL, WILLIAM JUSTUS

George was succeeded by son Constantine as king, reigning from March 1913 to June 1917, and again from December 1920 to September 1922, replaced in turn by brother George II. The interruption of Constantine’s rule was occasioned by Allied propaganda branding him a German sympathizer during World War I, subsequently repudiated by his overwhelming reelection to resume the throne. Further Reading Campbell, John. Modern Greece. London: Ernest Benn, 1968. Van der Kiste, John. Kings of the Hellenes. Gloucestershire, United Kingdom: Sutton Publishing, 1994.

GOEBEL, WILLIAM JUSTUS (1856–1900) Kentucky’s gubernatorial election of 1899 was a bitterly disputed contest. Incumbent governor William Bradley, a Republican, was barred by law from seeking a second term, prompting his party to nominate Attorney General William Taylor as its nominee. Democrats nominated state senator William Goebel, and another Democrat, John Y. Brown, also sought the office without official sanction from his party. In the November election, Goebel trailed Taylor by 2,396 votes, but Democrats charged fraud based on 12,040 votes for Brown which, they claimed, should have gone to Goebel. Democrats in the state assembly arbitrarily invalidated enough votes to give Goebel the victory, and Kentucky was teetering on the brink of civil war by January 30, 1900, when an unseen gunman fired on Goebel and two bodyguards at the Old State Capitol, wounding Goebel in the chest. Sworn in as governor on January 31, Goebel died from his wounds on February 3. William Goebel was born in Albany Township, Pennsylvania, on January 4, 1856, to German immigrant parents, moving with his family to Kentucky after his father returned from military service in the Civil War. Apprenticed to a Cincinnati jeweler after he attended school in Covington, Kentucky, Goebel left that trade and briefly enrolled Hollingsworth Business College, before dropping out to study law with the firm of ex–Kentucky governor John Stevenson, then graduated from Cincinnati Law School in 1877. After 10 years in private practice, he entered politics to seek a state senate seat vacated by James Bryan, and won the three-way election by a mere 56 votes. Politics seemed an unlikely choice of careers for Goebel, for various reasons. Far from genial, he refused to shake hands with any but his closest friends and impressed many other people as abrasive. Never married, or even linked romantically to a specific woman, he broke the mold for safely settled Bluegrass politicians. Even his appearance should have worked against him, described by Kentucky journalist Irvin S. Cobb as “reptilian,” viewed by others as merely

181

182

GOEBEL, WILLIAM JUSTUS

contemptuous. Nonetheless, he was a crafty politician, skilled at making— and breaking—bargains, collecting nicknames that included “King William I,” “William the Conqueror,” and “Boss Bill.” While completing Bryan’s unfinished term, Goebel launched an investigation of corrupt lobbying practices by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, defeating a bill sponsored by pro-railroad legislators that would have abolished Kentucky’s Railroad Commission. That victory permitted Goebel to run unopposed for a full term in 1889, and he won reelection in 1893 by a three-to-one margin over his Republican rival. Two years later, after Democratic politicianturned-banker John Sanford used his influence to block Goebel from a seat on the state supreme court, Goebel penned a newspaper article dubbing his nemesis “Gonorrhea John.” When next they met, on a Convington street, the men exchanged pistol fire, leaving Sanford dead, and Goebel escaped injury. Acquitted of illegal dueling on a plea of self-defense, Goebel retained his senate seat and looked forward to achieving higher office. In 1896, alleging that fraud by county election commissioners had secured victories for Republican governor William Bradley and president-elect William McKinley, Goebel wrote and secured passage of the Goebel Election Law and created a three-member state election commission, appointed by the General Assembly—then dominated by Democrats—to choose county election commissioners. Following the contentious election of 1899 and Goebel’s assassination, the commission was abolished in 1900. With Goebel’s swearing-in and subsequent death, his running mate, Lieutenant Governor John Beckham, assumed the governorship. Suspicion of conspiracy focused on sore loser William Taylor, who exacerbated matters by fleeing to Indiana, where Republican governor James Mount denied Kentucky’s writ of extradition. Taylor was indicted with fifteen others, but only five alleged conspirators faced trial, and jurors acquitted two of those. Defendants convicted in three separate trials, all before pro-Goebel Democratic judges, included accused ringleader Caleb Powers (Kentucky’s Republican secretary of state, elected in November 1899), middleman Henry Youtsey, and purported shooter Jim Howard. Republican appellate judges overturned the verdicts on Powers and Howard, but both were convicted anew in successive retrials. Republican governor Augustus Willson pardoned both men in 1908, and extended the same favor to fugitive William Taylor in 1909. Henry Youtsey did not appeal his conviction and resulting life prison term, but he turned state’s evidence to testify as a prosecution witness at the various retrials of his two codefendants, securing their repeated—though ultimately futile—convictions. Authorities paroled Youtsey in 1916, and he was pardoned three years later by Democratic governor James Black. Goebel remains the only state governor ever assassinated in the United States.

G O N Z Á L E Z D U B Ó N , E D U A R D O E PA M I N O N D A S

Further Reading Cobb, Irvin. Exit Laughing. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1941. Woodson, Urey. The First New Dealer, William Goebel: His Origin, Ambitions, Achievements, His Assassination, Loss to the State and Nation; the Story of a Great Crime. Louisville: Standard Press, 1939.

GONZÁLEZ DUBÓN, EDUARDO EPAMINONDAS (1945–1993) As president of Guatemala’s five-member Constitutional Court, Eduardo González Dubón was accustomed to threats against his life. The latest had arisen from the court’s conflict with President Jorge Antonio Serrano Elías, who had suspended the constitution on May 25, 1993, dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court, all in a supposed bid to “fight corruption.” González and his fellow jurists ruled those actions unconstitutional, and Guatemala’s army stood ready to enforce the ruling against the country’s rogue president. In a parallel and equally dangerous decision, the court had ruled in favor of extraditing Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Ochoa Ruiz to the United States, where he faced drug-trafficking charges. Then, on May 31—Good Friday—unidentified gunmen killed González in his car, outside his home in Guatemala City, as he prepared to leave for work. González’s assassination was sadly typical for Guatemala, where the United Fruit Company and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had conspired to depose President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán in 1954, replacing him with a military junta and plunging the nation into decades of violence, climaxed by a nearly endless civil war (1960–1996) that claimed at least 200,000 lives, with another 50,000 victims “disappeared.” While wracked by political mayhem from right and left—including “ethnic cleansing” by the army, random murders by quasiofficial death squads such as the Secret Anti-Communist Army, and guerrilla actions by 13 November Revolutionary Movement—Guatemala also became a primary channel for Colombian cocaine in transit to the North America and Western Europe. That traffic, as always, depended on official protection from high-ranking military officers and officers of the Judicial Police. President Serrano fled Guatemala the day after Judge González was murdered, seeking refuge in Panama, where friendly officials denied multiple requests for his extradition. Meanwhile, the Constitutional Court’s four surviving judges hedged their bets and reversed their decision to extradite Lieutenant Colonel Ochoa for trial in the United States. Ochoa remains under open indictment, charged by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration with using his own private plane to smuggle a half metric ton of cocaine, valued at $40 million, from Guatemala to Tampa, Florida. Prospects for his successful prosecution are dim.

183

184

G O U L A R T, J O Ã O B E L C H I O R M A R Q U E S

Guatemalan police eventually charged three suspects—Mario Salazar López, Marlon Salazar López, and Antonio Trabanino Vargas—with killing Judge González. All three were convicted at trial, but no information is currently available on their sentencing. Published reports indicate that Mario Salazar López “successfully appealed his conviction, but was arrested again in 2001,” once more with no further data available. After President Serrano fled the country in June 1993, Vice President Gustavo Adolfo Espina Salguero briefly succeeded him, but his participation in Serrano’s so-called “self-coup” prompted Congress to force Espina’s resignation after just four days in office. Replaced by Human Rights Ombudsman Ramiro de León Carpio, Espina spent four years in exile, then returned to Guatemala in 1997. Convicted of violating the constitution, he received a prison term, but it was instantly commuted to payment of a small fine. In Espina’s absence, in December 1996, Guatemala’s long civil war ended with the signing of a peace accord between the state and a coalition of hostile groups known collectively as Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity. Further Reading Schirmer, Jennifer. The Guatemalan Military Project: A Violence Called Democracy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. Shepard, Scott. The Long Road to Justice: Establishing the Rule of Law in Post-War El Salvador and Guatemala. Washington, DC: Storming Media, 1997.

GOULART, JOÃO BELCHIOR MARQUES (1919–1976) On December 6, 1976, former Brazilian president João Goulart died suddenly at age 57, in Mercedes, Argentina. Authorities blamed his death on a heart attack, but performed no autopsy. An estimated 30,000 mourners attended his funeral, but media coverage of that service was censored by the military junta that had deposed Goulart in 1964. Nearly a quarter-century elapsed before Leonel de Moura Brizola, former governor of Rio Grande do Sul (1959–1963) and Rio de Janeiro (1983–1987 and 1991–1994) announced his suspicions that Goulart and another Brazilian president, Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, had been murdered by the junta as part of a cover terror campaign dubbed “Operation Condor.” In January 2008, the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo published an interview with former Uruguayan intelligence officer Mario Neira Barreiro, alleging that Goulart was poisoned on orders from Brazilian president Ernesto Beckmann Geisel, with the slaying carried out by agents of Sérgio Fleury, head Brazil’s Department of Political and Social Order. João Goulart—“Jango” to his friends—was born on March 1, 1919, at São Borja, Brazil, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, a descendant of 18th-century

G O U L A R T, J O Ã O B E L C H I O R M A R Q U E S

Portuguese immigrants from the Azores. His father was a prosperous rancher, who also served as a colonel in the National Guard. Goulart enrolled early at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul’s law school, aided by a birth certificate his father falsified, showing his birth year as 1918. While attending that school, he reportedly contracted a venereal disease that, left untreated, virtually paralyzed his left knee. Graduating in 1939, Goulart was admitted to the bar but never entered legal practice professionally. Instead, he managed his father’s extensive land holdings, accruing substantial wealth by the time his father died in 1943. Two years later, Goulart accepted an invitation from Protásio Vargas, brother of retiring president Getúlio Vargas, to join the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB), beginning as a local leader, swiftly rising through the ranks. Elected to the state assembly in 1947, Goulart backed Getúlio Vargas’s presidential campaign three years later, advancing at the same time to a seat in the Chamber of Deputies. His service in that body was short-lived, however, as President Vargas soon appointed him secretary of the interior and justice, with a mandate to reform Brazil’s archaic prison system. In 1953, Vargas shifted Goulart to a new position in his cabinet, as minister of labor, helping to suppress a coup d’état by the right-wing National Democratic Union (UDN). By February 1954, when Goulart left the cabinet to resume his work in the Chamber of Deputies, President Vargas was immersed in economic crisis, exacerbated when one of his bodyguards tried to kill UDN leader Carlos Lacerda on August 5. Vargas called Goulart to his home on August 24, presenting him with a sealed letter and orders to read it only upon his return to Rio Grande do Sul. It proved to be the president’s suicide note, and he shot himself soon after Goulart departed. After considering retirement from politics, Goulart changed his mind and agreed to run for vice president in 1955, on the PTB ticket led by Juscelino Kubitschek. Four years later, he was reelected as vice president, this time under President Jânio da Silva Quadros. For reasons best known to himself, Quadros resigned his office in August 1961, after serving only seven months, and Goulart succeeded him. Goulart’s liberal policies—including a “Basic Reforms” plan to improve adult literacy and force reinvestment of foreign corporate profits in Brazil—proved unpalatable to Brazil’s right-wing elements. Following the pattern of subversion practiced elsewhere in Latin America, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency teamed with the ITT Corporation to organized and finance a coup against Goulart’s administration, culminating in his ouster from office at gunpoint on April 1, 1964. Goulart escaped to Uruguay, leaving Brazil in the hands of a military dictatorship that set new records for brutality in its long “dirty war” against the political left. Argentine president Juan Domingo Perón invited Goulart to Buenos Aires in 1973, to help expand the nation’s export markets, despite opposition from

185

186

GUERIN, VERONICA

right-wing minister of social welfare José López Rega. In March 1976, after far-right terrorists botched a plan to kidnap Goulart’s son for ransom, Goulart moved 450 miles south of Buenos Aires, to Mercedes, where he died nine months later. Today, with the collapse of Brazil’s military junta, Goulart is widely revered in his native land. At least 10 schools bear his name, as do streets in at least 15 cities. In November 2008, the government granted amnesty to Goulart and his widow, entitling Maria Teresa Goulart to restitution of some $372,000 for her years in exile. Further Reading Frank, Andre. The Goulart Ouster: Brazil in Perspective. New York: J. H. Richards, 1964. Skidmore, Thomas. The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil: 1964–1985. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Tavora, Araken. “Rehearsal for the Coup.” In The Brazil Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. Vargas, Getúlio. “Vargas’s Suicide Letter, 1954.” In The Brazil Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.

GUERIN, VERONICA (1958–1996) On June 26, 1996, Irish crime reporter Veronica Guerin was planning a trip from Dublin to London, where she was scheduled to speak in two days’ time at Freedom Forum. Her topic was to be “Dying to Tell the Story: Journalists at Risk.” That afternoon, as her car was stopped at a traffic light near Newlands Cross, on Dublin’s outskirts, a motorcycle bearing two men pulled alongside. The pillion passenger drew a .357 Magnum revolver and fired six shots at point-blank range, killing Guerin instantly, before the bike sped away. Garda investigators named five members of Dublin mobster John Gilligan’s syndicate as participants in the murder, aimed at preventing Guerin from publishing an exposé on Gilligan’s activities, and although several (with Gilligan) were later convicted on various charges, only Brian Meehan and Paul “Hippo” Ward faced trial for the slaying, receiving a life prison terms. A Dublin native, born on July 5, 1958, Veronica Guerin was a sports star in high school, studied accounting at Trinity College, and spent three years with her father’s firm before leaving to start her own public-relations company in 1983. During 1983–1984 she also served as secretary for Ireland’s Republican Party, Fianna Fáil, and subsequently worked as Charles Haughey’s personal assistant during his term as Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland. Another shift in careers soon followed, in 1990, when editor Damien Kiberd hired Guerin as an investigative reporter for the Sunday Business Post and Sunday Tribune newspapers. From 1994 onward, after a series of reports on the Provisional

GUERIN, VERONICA

Irish Republican Army, Guerin applied herself exclusively to investigations of the Irish underworld. That pursuit soon led her to focus on drug traffickers, which in turn produced numerous death threats. In October 1994, following publication of an article on murdered gangster Martin “The General” Cahill, drive-by gunmen fired two shots into Guerin’s home. Ignoring that incident, she next fixed her sights on mobster John “The Coach” Traynor. On January 30, 1995, one of Traynor’s thugs rang Guerin’s doorbell, pointed a gun at her head, then shot her in the leg. Traynor’s boss, John Gilligan, also assaulted Guerin on September 13, 1995, when she Irish crime reporter Veronica Guerin, murdered by confronted him publicly with underworld gunmen. (Associated Press) questions concerning his lavish lifestyle with no visible source of income. Gilligan subsequently telephoned Guerin’s home, threatening to kidnap and rape her son if she published any articles about him, but she persevered nonetheless, receiving an International Press Freedom Awards from the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists in December 1995. Taoiseach John Bruton attended Guerin’s funeral, calling her murder a direct “attack on democracy.” Soon afterward, Ireland’s parliament passed the Proceeds of Crime Act and the Criminal Assets Bureau Act, permitting confiscation of money and other assets gained from illegal activities. The Garda investigation of Guerin’s murder produced more than 150 felony arrests, culminating in official announcements that drug crimes in Ireland had declined 50 percent in Ireland over the following year. John Gilligan left Ireland for Amsterdam the day before Guerin’s murder, but he was captured in England a year later, while trying to board another outbound flight with $500,000 in cash. Charged with money laundering, Gilligan lost a three-year extradition fight, then was acquitted in Ireland of ordering Guerin’s death. A subsequent trial convicted him of smuggling 20 tons of

187

188

G U E VA R A , E R N E S T O “ C H E ”

cannabis, and he received a 28-year sentence, reduced to 20 years on appeal. Ireland’s Criminal Assets Board auctioned off his assets in January 2008. Veronica Guerin was memorialized with a statue on the grounds of Dublin Castle, and with addition of her name to the Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial at Arlington, Virginia. In 2000, the International Press Institute named her as one of 50 World Press Freedom Heroes for the past half-century. Two feature films have been based on her life: When the Sky Falls (2000), starring Joan Allen as reporter “Sinead Hamilton”; and Veronica Guerin (2003), starring Cate Blanchett in the title role. Further Reading O’Reilly, Emily. Veronica Guerin: The Life and Death of a Crime Reporter. London: Vintage, 1998. Mooney, John. Gangster: The Biography of International Drug Trafficker John Gilligan. Dunboyne, Ireland: Maverick House, 2011. Williams, Paul. Evil Empire: The Irish Mob and the Assassination of Journalist Veronica Guerin. New York: Forge Books, 2005.

GUEVARA, ERNESTO “CHE” (1928–1967) On October 8, 1967, Bolivian Rangers directed by U.S. Central Intelligence Agency “asset” Félix Rodrigues—and, some say, by fugitive Nazi war criminal Kalus Barbie—surprised a small band of guerrillas at Quebrada del Churro. In a brief firefight, the soldiers killed two of the group, while wounding and capturing its leader, Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Remaining defiant in custody, despite bound hands and a gunshot wound to his right leg, Guevara kicked one policeman who tried to snatch his pipe as a souvenir, then spat in the face of Bolivian rear admiral Horatio Ugarteche during an abortive interrogation. On the morning of October 9, President René Barrientos Ortuño ordered Guevara’s execution, a move that U.S. national security advisor Walt Rostow called “stupid,” but “understandable from a Bolivian standpoint.” Sergeant Mario Terán performed the execution in a rural schoolhouse, shooting Guevara nine times with a semiautomatic rifle to support the fiction that he was killed in battle. Terán then looted Che’s corpse, wearing his watch for years afterward, and an army doctor severed Guevara’s hands and preserved them for fingerprint identification. Officials refused to say if Guevara was cremated or buried at some still-undisclosed location. Born in Rosario, Argentina, on May 14, 1928, Che Guevara overcame severe asthma to become a star athlete and member of the Club Universitario de Buenos Aires rugby team. At the same time, he studied chess, world affairs, and military history. While studying medicine, during 1950–1951, he traveled widely through Latin America on a homemade motorcycle, observing conditions that converted him to revolutionary Marxism and deep-seated suspicion

G U E VA R A , E R N E S T O “ C H E ”

of U.S. activities in the region. Licensed to practice medicine in 1953, Che embarked on another epic journey through eight Latin American nations, finding his way to Guatemala in time for the U.S.-sponsored coup that deposed President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. At the same time, he made his first contact with members of Cuba’s July 26 Movement, led by Fidel Castro. From Guatemala, Che moved on to Mexico City, lecturing on medicine at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and doubling as a photographer for the Latina News Agency. He met Fidel and Raul Castro there, in June 1955, and joined their movement to depose Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Although Che initially planned to serve as the small army’s medic, he soon advanced to become one of Castro’s leading strategists and field commanders. Finally, as second in command, he personally executed captured spies, informers, and deserters. Following Castro’s victory, in January 1959, Guevara played multiple roles in the new revolutionary government—supervising a national literacy campaign, serving as minister of industries, promoting agrarian land reform, acting as president of Cuba’s new national bank, training soldiers, and reviewing the appeals of Batista loyalists sentenced to death by revolutionary courts. In April 1961, Guevara played a key role in repelling the CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion. Published reports also claim that he was instrumental in bringing Soviet nuclear weapons to Cuba, thereby precipitating the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. He left Cuba in 1965, tasked with “exporting revolution” to the world at large. That mission that led him first to the Republic of the Congo, where he fought with rebels led by future president Laurent-Désiré Kabila, opposing the national army, CIA contract agents, and South African mercenaries. From Africa, he moved on to Bolivia in 1966, leading a 50-member National Liberation Army of Bolivia against the military regime of President Barrientos. That campaign claimed his life, but Guevara remains an influential—and controversial—figure worldwide, nearly half a century after his death. His writings, including The Motorcycle Diaries (filmed in 2004), remain best-selling works today. Alberto Korda’s photo portrait of Che, titled “Guerrillero Heroico” (Heroic Guerrilla), has been labeled “the most famous photograph in the world” by the Maryland Institute College of Art. World figures ranging from Susan Sontag and Jean-Paul Sartre to Nelson Mandela have publicly hailed Che as a freedom fighter and revolutionary inspiration. Conversely, posthumous critics condemn him for his communist philosophy, his participation in executions, and the alleged role that his revolutionary actions played in strengthening U.S.-backed military dictatorships in Latin America. Today, Che Guevara is arguably the Western Hemisphere’s most famous revolutionary, eclipsing Castro himself. His image appears on countless posters, T-shirts, and other articles of clothing, and his life and death have been commemorated in at least 26 different songs, mostly in Spanish. Che had also been

189

190

G U I N N E S S, WA LT E R E D WA R D

portrayed in 14 feature films, by actors including Francisco Rabal (El Che Guevara, 1968), Omar Sharif (Che!, 1969), Michael Palin (Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl, 1982), Antonio Banderas (Evita, 1996), Miguel Ruiz Días (El Che, 1997), Alfredo Vasco (Hasta la Victoria Siempre, 1999), Gael García Bernal (Fidel, 2002), Karl Sheils (Meeting Che Guevara & the Man from Maybury Hill, 2003), Gael García Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries, 2004), Jsu Garcia (The Lost City, 2005), Martin Hyder (The Mark Steel Lectures: Che Guevara, 2006), Sam G. Preston (The True Story of Che Guevara, 2007), Eduardo Noriega (Che, 2007), and Benicio del Toro (Che, 2008). Further Reading Anderson, Jon. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. New York: Grove Press, 1997. Castaneda, Jorge. Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Crompton, Samuel. Che Guevara: The Making of a Revolutionary. New York: Gareth Stevens, 2009. James, Daniel. Che Guevara: A Biography. Lanham, MD: Cooper Square Press, 2001.

GUINNESS, WALTER EDWARD (1880–1944) On the afternoon of November 6, 1944, two members of the Zionist guerrilla organization Lohamei Herut Israel (“Fighters for the Freedom of Israel”)—commonly known as the Stern Gang, after founder Avraham Stern—ambushed Walter Guinness, 1st Baron of Moyne and British minister resident in the Middle East, outside his home in Cairo, Egypt, killing Guinness and his chauffeur. The gunmen, Eliyahu Bet-Zuri and Eliyahu Hakim, fled on bicycles but were soon overtaken by police, with Hakim wounded in an exchange of gunfire. Stern Gang field commander Yaakov Banai announced that Guinness was killed to dramatize the Zionist war against British Imperialism, saying: “We accuse Lord Moyne and the government he represents, with murdering hundreds and thousands of our brethren; we accuse him of seizing our country and looting our possessions. . . . We were forced to do justice and to fight.” An Egyptian court convicted Bet-Zuri and Hakim of murder on January 11, 1945, and they were hanged on March 23. A native of Dublin, Ireland, born on March 29, 1880, Walter Guinness was the third son of Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh, whose ancestors established the Guinness brewery in 1759. Educated at Eton, he volunteered for service in the Second Boer War (1899–1902), where he was wounded and received the Queen’s South Africa Medal, being discharged with the rank of captain. In 1907, Guinness was elected to the London County Council and the House of Commons and as a member of the Conservative Party. Back in uniform for World War I, he served in Egypt, at Gallipoli, and received the Distinguished Service

G U I N N E S S , WA L T E R E D WA R D

Order for the battle at Passendale, Belgium, ending the war as a lieutenant colonel. Returning to the House of Commons as an ardent anticommunist, he also opposed the postwar Irish struggle for independence from Britain. Guinness served as minister of agriculture from November 1925 to June 1929, then retired to the family brewing business after that year’s defeat of the Conservative Party. Expanding operations to Canada, he established British Pacific Properties in British Columbia and commissioned the First Narrows Bridge, spanning Burrard Inlet to link Vancouver with the Canadian mainland. In 1938, he was appointed Militant Zionists killed Walter Guinness, British minister of state in the Middle East. (Getty chairman of the West Indies Images) Royal Commission, tasked to investigate labor disputes in the Caribbean and offer advice on administration of British colonies in that region. At the outbreak of World War II, Guinness chaired the Polish Relief Fund, and then was transferred to Cairo as deputy resident minister in August 1942. There, in April 1944, he reportedly participated in the grilling of Joel Brand, a member of the Jewish-Hungarian Aid and Rescue Committee, who had attempted to negotiate with Nazi SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann for the exchange of 10,000 trucks for one million Jewish prisoners. At Eichmann’s mass-murder trial, in 1961, Brand testified that Guinness asked him, “What can I do with a million Jews? Where can I put them?” Brand was released by British authorities in October 1944, and joined the Stern Gang team that killed Guinness the following month. Fearing British retaliation in the wake of Guinness’s assassination, Jewish leaders in Palestine sought to publicly distance themselves from the Stern Gang, while still supporting its covert actions. The Jewish newspaper Haaretz, published in Tel Aviv, declared that Guinness’s slayers “have done more by this single reprehensible crime to demolish the edifice erected by three generations of Jewish pioneers than is imaginable.” In London, Prime Minister Winston

191

192

G U I N N E S S, WA LT E R E D WA R D

ZIONISM Zionism is broadly defined as a national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel. Although theoretically dating from the Diaspora of 586 BCE, during the Babylonian occupation of Israel, the organized movement properly began with Joseph Nasi (1524–1579), a Portuguese Jew who campaigned for Jewish emigration from the Ottoman Empire. Later distinguished by many splinter ideologies, Zionism achieved its goal with foundation of the state of Israel in 1948. Critics condemn the movement as colonialist and racist, citing statements such as propagandist Israel Zangwill’s description of Arab-populated Palestine as “a country without a people, for a people without a country.” Acts of terrorism committed by the Stern Gang and Irgun Zevai Leumi (“National Military Organization in the Land of Israel”) between 1920 and 1948 also tarnished the broader movement’s reputation. Some critics of Zionism, particularly in the Arab states, consider it a racist and/or colonialist movement. Some supporters of Zionism counter those arguments by claiming that any opposition to Zionism or Israel constitutes prima facie evidence of anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, Zionism remains a “hot topic” for far-right groups worldwide, including neo-Nazi and “white nationalist” groups in the United States. Spokesmen for those organizations spin conspiracy theories involving Jewish world domination, often referring to the U.S. federal government in Washington, D.C., as “ZOG”—the “Zionist Occupation Government.” In 1983, a farright group called the Order—also known in German as Brüder Schweigen (“Brothers Keep Silent”)—declared war on ZOG and on America at large, committing multiple murders and other acts of terrorism before its members were convicted of racketeering in 1986.

Churchill, once a self-described “Zionist,” told the House of Commons, “If our dreams for Zionism are to end in the smoke of an assassin’s pistol, and the labours for its future produce a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany, then many like myself will have to reconsider the position we have maintained so consistently and so long in the past.” Despite those comments, Hakim and Bet-Zuri were widely regarded as Zionist heroes. In 1975, Israel recovered their corpses from Egypt in exchange for 20 prisoners from Gaza and Sinai. The bodies lay in state at the Jerusalem Hall of Heroism, viewed by thousands including Israel’s president and prime minister, then were buried with full military honors at Mount Herzl national cemetery. In 1982, postage stamps were issued in their honor.

G U N N , D AV I D

Further Reading Avner. Memoirs of an Assassin: Confessions of a Stern Gang Killer. London: Thomas Yoseloff, 1959. Golan, Zev. Stern: The Man and His Gang. Tel Aviv: Yahir Publishing, 2011. Heller, Joseph. The Stern Gang: Ideology, Politics and Terror, 1940–1949. London: Frank Cass Publishers, 1995.

GUNN, DAVID (1946–1993) On March 10, 1993, “pro-life” zealot Michael Frederick Griffin joined a group of protesters outside Florida’s Pensacola Women’s Medical Services, where Dr. David Gunn performed abortions. As Gunn arrived for work that morning, Griffin rushed the doctor’s car, shouting, “Don’t kill any more babies,” and shot Gunn three times in the back at close range. Jurors convicted Griffin of murder on March 4, 1994, resulting in a life prison term. David Gunn was born and raised in Benton, Kentucky. He survived a childhood case of polio with a severe limp, defying the prediction of physicians that he would never drive a car or walk without a leg brace. Motivated by his own experience, after graduating from Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University, Gunn proceeded to study medicine at the University of Kentucky, specializing in obstetrics and gynecology. A brother later said Gunn’s partial disability determined his course of specialized study: “It was something we discussed,” Peter Gunn said. “You delivered babies in a seated position. He couldn’t stand for hours and hours without getting tired.” Dr. Gunn practiced first at a public hospital in Brewton, Alabama, choosing the Cotton State because it had the highest infant-mortality rate in the United States. By 1983, he had established his own fertil- A "pro-life" zealot murdered Dr. David Gunn in ity clinic in Eufala, Alabama. Florida. (Ralf-Finn Hestoff /Corbis)

193

194

G U N N , D AV I D

Nearby, in Columbus, Georgia, a clinic operated by the Women’s Health Network (WHN) lost its elderly physician who had terminated pregnancies, and executive director Susan Hill sought a replacement. Although raised in the Church of Christ, with its prohibition against abortions, Gunn agreed to take over the job, beginning a decade of relentless travel between six WHN clinics in the South, often driving 1,000 miles per week. Hill described Gunn to reporters as “a laid-back 60’s kind of guy who didn’t like the politics of medicine; he wanted to help,” but at the same time Gunn concealed his new activity from members of his strictly religious parents and siblings. Threats began immediately, from protesters outside the clinics Gunn served, to North Carolina’s White Patriot Party, formerly a branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which issued “Wanted” posters on Gunn, including his photograph and home address. Susan Hill recalled, “He told me several times that he had been followed from city to city. He would take back roads and choose different paths to throw them off. He didn’t report the threats. None of us did. They happen all the time.” Gunn did prepare himself by carrying three pistols in his car— one in the glove compartment, one beneath the driver’s seat, and another in the trunk—but none of them helped on the day he was shot. Acquaintances described assassin Michael Griffin as “a fundamentalist Christian and a loner with a bad temper.” Two months before the shooting, he had joined the Pensacola branch of Rescue America, an antiabortion group led locally by self-ordained minister John Burt—a self-described former alcoholic and ex-KKK member who claims that he “abandoned the group’s racist doctrine when he became a born-again Christian.” Before meeting Griffin, Burt served as “spiritual advisor” to a group of zealots that bombed three women’s clinics in 1984. Griffin initially told police that he shot Dr. Gunn “for God,” but at trial

ARMY OF GOD The Army of God (AOG) is a loose-knit coalition of “pro-life” Christian terrorists responsible for various acts of violence since August 1982, when self-proclaimed members kidnapped Dr. Hector Zevallos and his wife in Illinois, briefly holding them hostage under threat of death. In 1985, the group’s “East Coast Division” claimed credit for clinic bombings in Maryland and Washington, D.C., which resulted in imprisonment of Rev. Michael Bray and two accomplices. Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon, who shot and wounded Kansas physician George Tiller in August 1993, also declared herself a member of the AOG. Another self-described member, Scott Roeder, murdered Dr. Tiller in May 2009. The group also claimed responsibility for Eric Rudolph’s lethal 1997 clinic bombings in

G U S TAV I I I O F S W E D E N

Atlanta and Birmingham, along with a blast at a Georgia gay bar. Clayton Waagner, proclaiming himself a member of the AOG’s “Virginia Dare Chapter,” created an anthrax panic in 2001, by mailing some 500 envelopes filled with harmless white powder to 280 abortion providers nationwide. Paul Jennings Hill, executed in September 2003 for the 1994 Florida murders of Dr. John Britton and his bodyguard, advertised himself before that double killing as a “national spokesman” for the AOG. Various researchers disagree as to whether the group has any leadership structure—or, in fact, whether it physically exists, outside the minds of its fanatical activists. Meanwhile, the AOG, or some unknown person claiming to represent it, maintains a Web site at http://www.armyofgod .com. The site praises Paul Hill and Scott Roeder as “American heroes,” offers graphic photos of aborted fetuses, and refers interested parties to Rev. Donald Spitz, reachable via a post office box in Chesapeake, Virginia.

his attorneys claimed Griffin was “brainwashed” by Burt. No charges were filed against Burt in Gunn’s murder, but he received an 18-year prison sentence in 2005, convicted on five counts of molesting a 15-year-old girl at Our Father’s House, a “home” for troubled teenage girls and unwed mothers. Gunn’s assassination prompted Congress to pass the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in May 1994, imposing federal penalties for any threats or attacks against women’s clinics, obstruction of free access to their facilities, or stalking of clinic staff members. The statute upholds protesters’ First Amendment rights to assemble, picket, distribute literature, and shout outside clinics from a safe distance, as long as no threats are made. Further Reading Baird-Windle, Patricia, and Eleanor Bader. Targets of Hatred: Anti-Abortion Terrorism. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Mason, Carol. Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-Life Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002. Risen, James, and Judy Thomas. Wrath of Angels: The American Abortion War. New York: Basic Books, 1999.

GUSTAV III OF SWEDEN (1746–1792) On March 16, 1792, King Gustav III attended a banquet and masquerade ball at Stockholm’s Royal Opera House. Before leaving his palace, he had received an anonymous letter containing a death threat, but Gustav ignored it as routine. Moments after entering the opera house, Gustav was accosted by three

195

196

G U S T AV I I I O F S W E D E N

conspirators wearing black masks: Count Claes Fredrik Horn, Count Adolph Ludvig Ribbing, and army officer Jacob Johan Anckarström. While the counts distracted Gustav with the greeting, “Good-day, fine mask,” Anckarström shot him in the back with a pistol containing two balls, five pellets of shot and six bent nails. Gustav initially survived for nearly two weeks, continuing his function as head of state until infection claimed his life on March 29. All three plotters were arrested and confessed in custody. On April 16, Anckarström was sentenced to flogging and confinement in irons, with his right hand severed before he was beheaded on April 27. Count Ribbing was stripped of his title and sentenced to death in May 1792, later pardoned and exiled to France. No record survives of Count Horn’s sentence. Gustav was born in Stockholm on January 24, 1746, the eldest son of King Adolf Frederick. His father died on February 12, 1771, remembered as “the king who ate himself to death” with an epic meal including lobster, sauerkraut, caviar, kippers, champagne, and 14 helpings of his favorite dessert. Gustav was in Paris when his father died, and did not return until March 25, with his official coronation occurring on March 29. Chafing at the parliamentary reforms instituted since the death of King Charles XII, in 1718, and personally at odds with parliament’s dominant liberal “Caps” faction, Gustavplanned a coup with Finnish nobleman Jacob Magnus Sprengtporten in July 1772. By late August, their forces had seized control of Sweden, thus ending the nation’s 54-year Age of Liberty. Soon thereafter, Sprengtporten abandoned his partnership with Gustav, complaining that the king had grown “so violent and insolent that anything like agreement between them became impossible.” Over the next 17 years, Gustav pressed for restoration of royal autocracy— or “enlightened despotism,” as he saw it—and achieved his goal at last with passage of the Union and Security Act in 1789. That statute delegated most of parliament’s former powers to the king, including the sole authority to declare war and make peace. He proved fickle in foreign policy, first plotting to capture Norway with aid from Russia, then scheming to invade Russia’s Baltic provinces when the first plan failed. The French Revolution of 1788–1789 alarmed Gustav, who feared similar revolts against monarchs throughout Europe, and he contributed substantial funds toward an abortive plan to reinstate Louis XVI as king of France. In terms of domestic policy, while remaining autocratic and restricting freedom of the press, Gustav granted a measure of religious liberty to Jews and Catholics (Gustav himself was Lutheran). He was a renowned—some said extravagant—patron of the arts and literature, founding several Royal Academies to promote the arts, culture, and science in Sweden, and built the Royal Swedish Opera in 1782—where he would be slain 10 years later. Gustav was succeeded by his son, 13-year-old Gustav Adolf, with Gustav’s brother Charles serving as regent. In 1805, Gustav Adolf joined the

G U S TAV I I I O F S W E D E N

Third Coalition against Napoleon Bonaparte, with the result that France occupied Swedish Pomerania. A popular rebellion against the young, inept king prompted Gustav Adolf to abdicate and flee into exile, leaving his uncle in charge as Charles XIII. Further Reading Barton, H. Arnold. Scandinavia in the Revolutionary Era, 1760–1815. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. Ihalainen, Pasi, Michael Bregnsbo, Karin Sennefelt, and Patrik Winton. Scandinavia in the Age of Revolution. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2011.

197

This page intentionally left blank

H HABYARIMANA, JUVÉNAL (1937–1994) At 8:20 P.M. on April 6, 1994, a Dassault Falcon 50 private jet approached Rwanda’s Kigali International Airport. Aboard the plane were Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana, the nation’s three highest-ranking military officers, the president’s foreign affairs advisor, and his personal physician. Also on board was Cyprien Ntaryamira, president of Burundi, accompanied by Burundi’s minister of communication and minister of public works. As the presidential jet prepared to land, two surface-to-air missiles struck the aircraft, killing all nine passengers and three French crewmen. Juvénal Habyarimana was born on March 8, 1937, in Ruanda-Urundi, a Belgian suzerainty from 1916 to 1924, then a League of Nations Class B Mandate until 1945, and a United Nations Trust Territory. A member of the dominant Hutu tribe, Habyarimana was 22 years old during the Rwandan Revolution of 1959, when Hutus killed at least 20,000 Tutsi tribe members (some accounts claim 100,000), and driving thousands more into exile. Three years later, independence from foreign rule saw Ruanda-Urundi separated into the neighboring sovereign states of Rwanda and Burundi (with a ruling Tutsi majority). Ethnic violence between Hutus and Tutsis persisted in Rwanda, and Hutus dominated the government and army. Habyarimana chose the military as a path to power, rising to army chief of staff at age 36. On July 5, 1973, he led a coup that deposed President Grégoire Kayibanda and his ruling Parti du Mouvement de l’Emancipation Hutu (“Party of the Hutu Emancipation Movement”). By 1975, Habyarimana’s National Revolutionary Movement for Development was Rwanda’s only legal party, reinforced in 1978 with a new constitution affirming one-party rule. A unique feature of the revised constitution was the policy of Umuganda, under which all Rwandans were compelled to work one-half day each week on projects related to national infrastructure. Passage of the constitution was accompanied by Habyarimana’s election to another five-year presidential term, running unopposed. Habyarimana initially posed as a friend of both Hutu and Tutsi alike, but soon dropped that façade, favoring members of his own tribe in Rwanda and sponsoring Hutu attacks on Burundi’s Tutsi-run government. Cronyism was the order of the day, ensuring Habyarimana’s reelection as the only presidential

200

H A B YA R I M A N A , J U V É N A L

candidate in 1983 and 1989. The president’s high-handed methods evoked pressure from France (Rwanda’s primary financial supporter), the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, seeking relaxation of one-party rule, and in summer 1990 Habyarimana reluctantly agreed to permit campaigning by opposition parties. By then, however, it was too late to avert rebellion. Exiled Tutsis, organized as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), invaded Rwanda from Uganda in October 1990, sparking a civil war that reached a bloody climax in May 1992, finally ended—at least, for the moA rocket attack killed Rwandan president Juvénal ment—with signing of the Arusha Accords in August 1993. Habyarimana in 1994. (Getty Images) That treaty ostensibly shared official power between Hutus and Tutsis, but the war had hardened Hutu attitudes toward Rwanda’s ethnic minority. Hutu extremists from the Coalition for the Defense of the Republic claimed that RPF leaders sought to impose a Tutsi monarchy in Rwanda, publicly calling for extermination of Tutsi “cockroaches.” Ethnic violence escalated through early 1994, and UN peacekeepers proved unable to stem the bloodshed. In early April, President Habyarimana embarked on visits to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and Tanzania, before traveling with Burundian president Ntaryamira and his ministers on the journey that climaxed with their death. Responsibility for the April 6 rocket attack was never reliably assigned. Hutu leaders blamed RPF chief Paul Kagame, whereas RPF spokesmen accused President Habyarimana own party, alleging a plot to provoke anti-Tutsi pogroms. Rwandan prime minister Jean Kambanda claimed that François de Grossouvre—a high-ranking aide to French president François Mitterrand— had knowledge of a plot against Habyarimana, an assertion perhaps supported by de Grossouvre’s suicide on April 7, 1994. Whoever was responsible for killing Habyarimana, the assassination triggered the Rwandan genocide of 1994, with an estimated 800,000 to 1 million

H A M I D A D D I N , YA H YA M U H A M M A D

Tutsis slaughtered between April and July. That violence, in turn, led the Tutsi RPF to renew its offensive against the predominately Hutu government, seizing the capital at Kigali on July 4. Fearing retribution, some two million Hutus fled the country, leaving the government in Tutsi hands for the first time since Rwanda achieved independence. RPF leader Paul Kagame assumed the presidency in March 2000 and retains it at the time of this writing. Further Reading Dallaire, Roméo. Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003. Mamdani, Mahmood. When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. Prunier, Gérard. The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. Straus, Scott. The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006.

HAMIDADDIN, YAHYA MUHAMMAD (1869–1948) On February 17, 1948, Muslim reformers in the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen staged a coup d’état against Imam (King) Yahya Muhammad Hamidaddin in Sana’a, killing the king and three of his 16 sons. Civil war erupted between loyalists and the rebels, and spokesmen for the League of Arab States attempted to negotiate a ceasefire. By March 14, the late imam’s eldest son— Prince Ahmad bin Yahya Hamidaddin—had retaken the capital from reformist opponents, and conditions within Yemen were declared “normal” by March 16. British colonial authorities in South Yemen (now Aden) recognized Ahmad as the new and rightful king on April 21. Yahya Muhammad Hamidaddin was born in Sana’a on June 18, 1869, a member of the Al Qasimi dynasty that traced its ancestry to Imam Ali, a cousin and son-in-law of Muslim prophet Muhammad, the first convert to Islam and ruler of the Rashidun Caliphate from 656 to 661. Yahya succeeded his father as king in 1904, ruling the area later known as North Yemen, although the Ottoman Turks who occupied the region refused to recognize his authority until 1913, when the Treaty of Daan conceded his status as the spiritual and temporal leader of the Zaydi Shi’a in Yemen. Under that agreement, Zaydi-controlled areas were be governed by sharia law, with the Imam empowered to appoint governors and judges, also collecting taxes, while himself remaining under Ottoman authority. Late in World War I, the Armistice of Mudros—signed on October 30, 1918—transferred control of Yemen from Turkey into British hands. Imam

201

202

H A M M A R S K J Ö L D, D A G H J A L M A R A G N E C A R L

Yahya seized that opportunity to proclaim northern Yemen an independent, formally renamed as the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen in 1926. Attempts at territorial expansion into southern Tihamah and ‘Asir sparked the Saudi– Yemeni War of 1934, settled with the Treaty of Taif in May, establishing the current boundary line between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Yahya’s border-hopping forced also clashed sporadically with British troops in the Aden Protectorate. From 1934 until his death, Imam Yahya on consolidating his authority inside Yemen, suppressing crime, and maintaining a viable government. His regime was the first to send students abroad, and Yahya created the first Yemeni trading company to expand economic opportunities. Unexpectedly, in light of later Middle Eastern events, Yemen’s Jews enjoyed the imam’s favor and praised him as a paragon of justice. Yahya’s assassination revealed a rift in his family, as loyal tribesmen rallied to support Prince Ahmad, while two of his brothers—Prince Alabbass and Prince Alhassan—declared themselves rulers from the capital. Ahmad’s troops suppressed that rebellion, and another abortive coup by two of his brothers in March 1956, and a mutual defense pact with Egypt strengthened his regime in April 1956. Two years later, Ahmad joined the United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria) to create a loose confederation called the United Arab States, but internal dissension dissolved it in September 1961. King Ahmad died in September 1962, succeeded by his son, Crown Prince Muhammad al-Badr, but a military coup deposed him after nine days on the throne, abolishing Yemen’s monarchy. Further Reading Dresch, Paul. A History of Modern Yemen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Dresch, Paul. Tribes, Government, and History in Yemen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Phillips, Sarah. Yemen and the Politics of Permanent Crisis. London: Routledge, 2011.

HAMMARSKJÖLD, DAG HJALMAR AGNE CARL (1905–1961) On the night of September 17–18, 1961, a Douglas DC-6 airliner crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), killing all 16 persons on board. One of those lost was Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), en route to negotiate a ceasefire between UN peacekeepers and troops led by Moise Tshombe in the Republic of the Congo. Eyewitness reports, describing a bright flash in the sky that preceded the plane crash, spawned multiple official inquiries and fueled persistent claims that Hammarskjöld had been

HAMMARSKJÖLD, DAG HJALMAR AGNE CARL

assassinated, either with a bomb or a surface-to-air missile. Dag Hammarskjöld was born in Jönköping, Sweden, on July 29, 1905, the youngest son of Prime Minister Hjalmar Hammarskjöld. He studied at Katedralskolan (“The Cathedral School”) in Uppsala, then attended Uppsala University, where he earned a bachelor of laws and a master’s degree in political economy. While working as secretary for a government committee on unemployment, he completed his doctorate in economics at Stockholm University. His studies completed, Hammarskjöld joined the Sveriges Conspiracy theories surround the plane crash that Riksbank as a secretary in killed Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961. (Getty Images) 1936, rising swiftly to serve as chairman from 1941 to 1948. Simultaneously, in 1947, he joined Sweden’s ministry for foreign affairs, and became its state secretary in 1949. In 1951, he was appointed as vice chairman of Sweden’s delegation to the UN General Assembly in Paris, promoted to chairman of the delegation when UN headquarters moved to New York City the following year. In April 1953, he replaced Norway’s Trygve Lie as the UN’s Secretary General, and was reelected to a second term in 1957. Widely regarded as a competent administrator without any political agenda, Hammarskjöld sought to ease tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbors, negotiated with China for release of 15 U.S. pilots captured during the Korean War, and established the UN Emergency Force, first fielded during the 1956 Suez Crisis. June 1960 brought independence to the former Belgian Congo, and unleashed the civil war that would draw Hammarskjöld to his death. Three official inquiries probed the circumstances of the fatal crash at Ndola. First was the Rhodesian Board of Investigation, convened on September 19, 1961, under British lieutenant colonel M.C.B. Barber. That panel concluded its proceedings on November 2, 1961, and was followed by two weeks of hearings before an independent Rhodesian Commission of Inquiry, in January 1962. Finally, a UN Commission of Investigation, chaired by Nepalese diplomat and human rights activist Rishikesh Shaha, probed the crash, later in 1962. None

203

204

H A M M A R S K J Ö L D, D A G H J A L M A R A G N E C A R L

of those panels determined a cause for the airliner’s crash. Two Swedish bodyguards aboard the plane had suffered multiple bullet wounds, but the UN’s report deemed their wounds superficial, apparently caused when ammunition on board the plane detonated while burning. The plane’s wreckage showed no signs of foul play, and reports of a flash in the sky were dismissed as inconsistent, possibly occurring after the DC-6 crashed. Those inconclusive verdicts failed to quash conspiracy theories surrounding Hammarskjöld’s death. One proposed scenario blamed Belgian and/or U.S. intelligence agencies, citing their support for the July 1960 secession of Katanga from the Republic of the Congo, and their evident participation in the murder of Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba. Further suspicion was raised by the prominent role of British military officers in the Rhodesian inquiries, suggestive to some critics of a possible whitewash. Supporting allegations that critical evidence was suppressed or misrepresented, ballistics expert Major C. F. Westell stated, “I can certainly describe as sheer nonsense the statement that cartridges of machine guns or pistols detonated in a fire can penetrate a human body.” Westell based that conclusion on British experiments conducted to see if firefighters faced risks of being accidentally gunned down while responding to conflagrations at military arsenals. Long after the fact, in August 1998, Archbishop Desmond Tutu reported that letters uncovered by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission implicated the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, South African intelligence services, and Britain’s Security Service (MI5) in the 1961 plane crash. One letter stated that a bomb in the aircraft’s wheel bay had been set to explode when the landing gear was lowered. Britain’s Foreign Office rejected that charge, branding the letters in question a product of a Cold War era Soviet disinformation campaign. In July 2005, Norwegian major general Bjørn Egge—the first UN officer to view Hammarskjöld’s corpse 44 years earlier—reported that Hammarskjöld had an apparent bullet hole in his forehead, which was airbrushed out of photos taken at the scene before their publication. Egge further suggested that Hammarskjöld might have been thrown from the wreckage alive, then was shot while crawling away. Around the same time, a U.S. intelligence officer stationed on Cyprus in September 1961 reported hearing a cockpit recording from Ndola’s control tower. According to that witness, the tape included sounds of gunfire and an unidentified pilot announcing, “I’ve hit it.” In September 2009, Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi called for a new UN investigation of Hammarskjöld’s death and Patrice Lumumba’s murder, but that request was ignored. See also: Lumumba, Patrice Émery (1925–1961).

HAMPTON, FRED

Further Reading Urquhart, Brian. Hammarskjöld. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972. Van Dusen, Henry. Dag Hammarskjöld: The Man and His Faith. New York: Harper & Row, 1969. Williams, A. Susan. Who Killed Hammarskjöld? The UN, the Cold War, and White Supremacy in Africa. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2011.

HAMPTON, FRED (1948–1969) On November 13, 1969, Chicago police raided the local office of the Black Panther Party (BPP), sparking a shootout that left two patrolmen and one Panther dead, with seven other persons wounded. In the wake of that battle, the Chicago Tribune ran an editorial titled “No Quarter for Wild Beasts,” urging that officers approach all Panthers prepared to use lethal force. Three weeks later, at 4:45 A.M. on December 4, 14 officers of the Special Prosecutions Unit, deployed by Edward Hanrahan, Illinois state’s attorney for Cook County, staged another aid on Panther headquarters, killing BPP chairman Fred Hampton and another party member, Mark Clark. Seven other Panthers were arrested, charged with on charges of aggravated assault and the attempted murder, held in lieu of $100,000 bail. Crime scene evidence revealed at least 82 shots fired by officers during the raid, versus one shot fired by Clark as he lay dying on the floor. Hampton was shot while lying in bed with his pregnant girlfriend, and Cook County chemist Eleanor Berman, hired by Hampton’s family, found traces of the barbiturate secobarbital in his corpse. Relatives of Clark and Hampton sued the city, state, and federal governments for $47.7 million, charging a conspiracy to violate the Panthers’ civil rights. Federal judge J. Sam Perry dismissed the case after 18 months of testimony, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed that decision and ordered a retrial. In 1982, the defendants settled the claim for $1.85 million. Fred Hampton was born in Chicago police executed Black Panther Fred Summit, Illinois, on August 30, Hampton as he slept, in 1969. (Bettmann/Corbis)

205

206

HAMPTON, FRED

1948, and raised in the Chicago suburb of Maywood. He graduated with honors from Proviso East High School in 1966, then enrolled as a pre-law student at Triton Junior College in River Grove, Illinois. First active as a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Youth Council, he demonstrated natural leadership qualities. Exposure to police racism in his home environment drew Hampton to the BPP when its Chicago chapter organized, late in 1967. From that base, he negotiated a truce among the city’s largest African America street gangs, including the 30,000-member Blackstone Rangers. Next came collaboration with the mostly white Students for a Democratic Society, the Hispanic Brown Berets, and the Chinese-American Red Guard Party. In May 1969, Hampton publicly described that alliance as a “rainbow coalition”—a term subsequently appropriated and popularized by Rev. Jesse Jackson. Hampton’s charisma and achievements quickly made him a target for Chicago police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), collaborating in illegal harassment of the Panthers under one of the FBI’s covert “counterintelligence programs” (COINTELPRO). FBI documents secured by Senate investigators in 1975 revealed that the bureau engaged in activities ranging from outlawed wiretaps and anonymous hate-mail campaigns to active promotion of violence between Black Panthers and other ghetto organizations, provoking multiple murders in cities from coast to coast. In Chicago, FBI agents first tried to provoke a shooting war between Panthers and the Blackstone Rangers. Failing that, they hired agents’ provocateurs to infiltrate the Panthers and encourage criminal activity. One such hireling, William O’Neal, later committed suicide after admitting that he drugged a drink consumed by Hampton on the night of the fatal police raid. Other evidence of a set-up and summary execution came from within the FBI itself. Retired agent Mont Wesley Swearingen, in a 1995 memoir, described fellow agent Gregg York telling him, “We expected about twenty Panthers to be in the apartment when the police raided the place. Only two of those black niggers were killed, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.” A survivor of the December raid, Panther Harold Bell, recalled the following exchange between uniformed raiders in the apartment: “That’s Fred Hampton.” “Is he dead? Bring him out.” “He’s barely alive.” “He’ll make it.” Two more shots rang out, then, and an officer replied, “He’s good and dead now.” Cook County’s Democratic Party declined to endorse Edward Hanrahan for reelection, but he won the primary without party support, only to lose the general elections. In the 1970s he also lost two gubernatorial bids, and finished his political career in the 1980s, defeated in a campaign for Chicago’s City Council.

HAMPTON, FRED

FBI WAR ON THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY (BPP) In August 1967, the FBI launched a covert action program to disrupt and “neutralize” organizations designated as “Black Nationalist Hate Groups.” Although these ranged from the Nation of Islam to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Martin Luther King Jr., agents paid particular attention to the Black Panthers. In 1968, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover labeled Panthers “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.” Bureau activities against the BPP included efforts to promote violence between Panthers and other organizations, including rival militant groups, ghetto street gangs, and white “radical” organizations. In California alone, during 1969, at least three Panthers were murdered by members of United Slaves, a competing black militant organization founded and led by an FBI/police informant. Nationwide, through 1970, 34 Panthers died in police shootings, or were slain by fellow party members. In the case of New York Panther Alex Rackley, tortured and killed in May 1969 as a suspected police informant, it now appears that an actual police spy shifted suspicion from himself toward the innocent Rackley, then joined in Rackley’s interrogation and murder. Other BPP members, such as Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt, were framed and imprisoned for crimes they did not commit, only exonerated decades later. These illegal activities were fully documented in 1976 by the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, accessible online at http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfin alreportIIIc.htm. Although the FBI supposedly ended its illegal harassment campaigns with Hoover’s death in 1972, similar tactics were used against the American Indian Movement and other groups through the 1980s, and perhaps beyond.

Thirty-five years after Hampton’s slaying that same council unanimously declared December 4, 2004, as “Fred Hampton Day” in Chicago. Further Reading Churchill, Ward. Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret War against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. Boston: South End Press, 2001. Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Fred Hampton.” FBI Records: The Vault. http://vault .fbi.gov/Fred%20Hampton. Haas, Jeffrey. The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2010. Wilkins, Roy, and Ramsey Clark. Search and Destroy: A Report by the Commission of Inquiry into the Black Panthers and the Police. New York: Metropolitan Applied Research Center, 1973.

207

208

HAN I, M ARTI N TH EM BISI LE “CH RIS”

HANI, MARTIN THEMBISILE “CHRIS” (1942–1993) White faces were not unusual in Dawn Park, a racially mixed suburb of Boksburg, South Africa, in April 1993. Chris Hani—chairman of the South African Communist Party and leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC)—paid little attention to the white man standing on his street when Hani came home, on the evening of April 10. The stranger, Polish immigrant Janusz Walu s, ´ stepped forward as Hani got out of his car, shooting Hani at close range and killing him instantly. Walus´ fled, but was captured nearby. Police traced his pistol to Clive DerbyLewis a member of parliament from the Conservative Party, once described by the Daily Telegraph as a “right-wing extremist” and someone who “even by South African standards . . . has acquired over the years a reputation as a rabid racist.” Walus´ and Derby-Lewis were both convicted of murder and sentenced to death. In 1995, with abolition of capital punishment, their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. Chris Hani was born in Cofimvaba, a small town in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province, on June 28, 1942. He studied classical and modern literature at the University of Fort Hare, in Alice, East Cape. Some reports also describe him as a student at Rhodes University, in Grahamstown, South Africa. A member of the ANC Youth League by age 15, Hani participated in protests against the Bantu Education Act (mandating racially segregated schools), and joined Umkhonto we Sizwe after graduating from the university. At age 20, following arrest under the Suppression of Communism Act, Hani left South Africa for exile in Lesotho, then moved on to receive military training in the Soviet Union. Returning to Africa as a committed Red revolutionary, Hani fought in the chaotic Rhodesian Bush War of 1964–1979, wherein five separate militant groups waged guerrilla warfare against the white minority government led by Prime Minister Ian Smith. That struggle was ultimately successful, achieving universal suffrage in Zimbabwe Rhodesia and electing the nation’s first black prime minister in April 1979. Hani’s reputation for courage under fire marked him as a prime target for white racists, and he survived several assassination attempts before returning permanently to South Africa in 1990. A year later, he replaced Joe Slovo as head of South Africa’s Communist Party, opening negotiations to remove a legal ban imposed on the party in 1950. Hani’s assassination is regarded as a turning point in South Africa’s history. Although widespread violence was anticipated, future president Nelson Mandela calmed furious crowds with a nationally televised plea for peace. Political negotiations continued, resulting in elections that installed Mandela as president in May 1994. Prosecutors suspected that Hani was slain as part of a conspiracy to subvert peaceful negotiations toward dismantling apartheid in South Africa. In

H A R A L D I V O F N O R WAY

addition to triggerman Walus´ and Clive Derby-Lewis, authorities also indicted Gayle Derby-Lewis, Clive’s wife and a prominent Conservative Party member. Police also investigated Arthur Kemp—a columnist for The Citizen, a tabloid paper published by the racist National Party—for allegedly providing a “hit list” of targets including Chris Hani, Joe Slovo, and Nelson Mandela, but they filed no charges against Kemp. At trial, jurors acquitted Gayle Derby-Lewis of participating in Hani’s murder. In April 1999, Janusz Walu s´ and Clive Derby-Lewis appeared before South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, seeking amnesty for their crimes. Derby-Lewis admitted personal responsibility, stating that he acted “in defense of my people, who were threatened with a Communist take-over,” and citing tenets of his religion to say that “my first duty is to the Almighty God before everything else. We were fighting against communism, and communism is the vehicle of the Antichrist.” Nonetheless, both men also claimed that Hani’s murder was sanctioned by higher-ranking members of the Conservative Party. The commission denied their plea for amnesty, a decision upheld by the Cape High Court in 2000. Their latest parole bids were denied in September 2011. Further Reading Mali, Thami. Chris Hani: The Sun That Set before Dawn. Johannesburg: Sached Books, 1994. Suttner, Raymond. Chris Hani: Portrait of a South African Revolutionary. New York: Ocean Press, 1998. Waldmeir, Patti. Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.

HARALD IV OF NORWAY (CA. 1102–1136) Claimants to disputed thrones were an endangered species during Europe’s Middle Ages, with the threat of homicide increased proportionately by the size of royal families and promiscuity within an atmosphere where bastardy proliferated. One such target was King Harald IV of Norway, also known as Harald Gille or Gilchrist (probably from Gylle Krist, “servant of Christ”). On the night of December 14, 1136, as he slept in his palace at Bergen, assassins dispatched by a rival crept into his room and stabbed him to death in his bed. Details of Harald’s early life are vague, with published dates of birth ranging from 1100 to 1103, the location cited in different accounts as either Ireland or the Hebrides (an archipelago off the west coast of Scotland, including 51 inhabited islands). In his youth, he became acquainted with Norwegian merchants and sailors, including Rögnvald Kali Kolsson, a future earl of Orkney and a Norwegian saint. Enamored of the tales they shared, Harald traveled to Norway in 1127, presenting himself as an illegitimate son of the late

209

210

H A R A L D I V O F N O R W AY

King Magnus III, also known as Magnus Barefoot. Although no documentation supported that claim, Magnus had died in battle on August 24, 1103, while attempting to conquer the region of present-day Northern Ireland. During that campaign, Irish chronicles maintain that Magnus was “particularly fond” of at least one Irish woman. Harald’s claim naturally disturbed King Sigurd the Crusader, successor to Magnus and one of three other illegitimate sons (each from different mothers) left behind at his father’s passing. Confronted with yet another supposed halfbrother, Sigurd commanded Harald to pass an ordeal by fire, which he survived with only minor burns. They struck a bargain then, Sigurd agreeing to recognize Harald as long as Harald made no claim to the throne while Sigurd or his son, Magnus, was living. Harald kept his word until Sigurd died in Oslo, on March 26, 1130, then rallied Norse nobles to declare himself king. Instead of granting Harald full authority, however, the gathering divided Norway into rival kingdoms, one each ruled by Harald and Magnus IV. Peace endured for a time under that arrangement, but jealousy got the better of Magnus in in 1134. On August 9 of that year, his forces defeated Harald’s army at the Battle at Färlev, in Bohuslän, Götaland, Sweden. Harald fled to Denmark, and Magnus retreated to Bergen and unwisely disbanded his army. Harrald gathered more troops and returned to Norway, besieging Bergen in late December, capturing the city on January 7, 1135. Magnus IV was deposed and taken prisoner, his eyes gouged out on Harald’s order, also castrated, with one leg severed. Thereafter known as Magnus the Blind, he was lodged at Nidarholm Abbey, a Benedictine monastery on the island of Munkholmen, offshore from Trondheim. Removal of Magnus did not eliminate Harald’s competition, however. Next in line to covet Norway’s throne was Sigurd Magnusson Slembe (from slembi, Old Norse for “noisy”), yet another supposed illegitimate son of Magnus Barefoot. Sigurd arranged Harald’s murder, then reinstated Magnus IV as king. If he hoped that gesture would improve his status, Sigurd was mistaken. He was convicted and outlawed for regicide, and blind and crippled Magnus faced a new challenge from Harald’s only legitimate son, Inge Haraldsson—also known as Inge the Hunchback. Magnus recalled Sigurd to aid him in defending the realm, supported by troops on loan from King Eric II of Denmark, but Inge defeated their combined force in a naval battle at Holmengrå, on November 12, 1139. Magnus died in that engagement, impaled on a spear, and Sigurd Slembe was captured and executed. Inge I then ruled Norway until his death from natural causes, in February 1161. Further Reading Carlyle, Thomas. Early Kings of Norway. Charleston, SC: BiblioLife, 2008. Sturluson, Snorri. Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991.

H A R R I S O N , C A R T E R H E N R Y, S R .

HARRISON, CARTER HENRY, SR. (1825–1893) On October 28, 1893, deranged Irish immigrant Patrick Prendergast visited the home of Chicago mayor Carter Harrison Sr. A maid admitted Prendergast and woke the mayor, who had been napping. As Harrison emerged from his study, Prendergast drew a revolver and shot him three times, then escaped after firing a shot at Harrison’s gardener. Thirty minutes later, he surrendered to police, delivering a semi-coherent confession. Investigators determined that Prendergast had worked on the fringes of Harrison’s recent election campaign, somehow deluding himself that he would be appointed as Chicago’s corporation counsel (chief legal officer) when Harrison took office. No appointment was forthcoming, because Harrison had never heard of Prendergast, and the gunman was not an attorney in any case. Convicted of murder despite an insanity plea and the best efforts of celebrity lawyer Clarence Darrow, Prendergast was hanged on July 14, 1894. A native of Fayette County, Kentucky, born to an affluent family on February 15, 1825, Carter Harrison was educated by private tutors prior to enrollment at Yale College, where he graduated in 1845. Thereafter, he studied in Europe from 1851 to 1853, then returned to Lexington, Kentucky, where he graduated from Transylvania University’s law school and was admitted to the bar in 1855. Seeking his fortune in Chicago, Harrison practiced law until 1872, then set his sights on a political career. Defeated in his 1872 bid for a congressional seat, he rallied sufficient support to win a place on Cook County’s board of commissioners in 1874. His next bid for Congress proved successful, and he served two terms, from 1875 to 1879, when he replaced Monroe Heath as Chicago’s mayor. Voters appreciated Harrison enough to reelect him for successive twoyear terms in 1881, 1883, and 1885. During the final year of Harrison’s second term as mayor, in May 1886, Chicago was rocked by the infamous Haymarket bombing and riot (see sidebar). Without bodyguards, Harrison stood between armed police and anarchists, both sides inflamed by bloodshed, and prevented further violence by force of personality alone. Harrison did not stand for reelection that year, instead retiring to purchase the Chicago Times, where he also served as editor from 1891 to 1893. In 1893, Harrison ran for mayor a third time and won the election, replacing incumbent Hempstead Washburne. At the time, Chicago was hosting the World’s Columbian Exposition, a lavish world’s fair opened in October 1892 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World. The fair was scheduled to close of October 30, 1893, with Mayor Harrison delivering the keynote address, but his murder canceled that appearance and the exposition’s closing celebration was converted into a public memorial service for Harrison.

211

212

H A R R I S O N , C A R T E R H E N R Y, S R .

HAYMARKET RIOT In February 1886, managers of Chicago’s McCormick Harvesting Machine Company locked out union workers, prompting a general strike by some 40,000 Windy City laborers in sympathy with those discharged. On May 4, 1886, a demonstration was staged at Haymarket Square, proceeding peacefully until some unknown person hurled a bomb at police on the sidelines, killing one officer outright and fatally wounding six others. Police then fired on the crowd, killing four demonstrators and wounding 70 more. Subsequently, eight anarchists were indicted and convicted of conspiracy in the bombing, despite a prosecutor’s admission that none had thrown the fatal bomb. All eight were convicted, with seven sentenced to die, and one received a 15-year sentence. Governor Richard Oglesby commuted two of the death sentences to life imprisonment, and a third condemned prisoner committed suicide in jail before the other four were hanged on November 11, 1887. Six years later, Governor John Altgeld pardoned the surviving Haymarket defendants, criticizing the conduct of their trial. The actual bomber remains unidentified.

Carter Harrison was Chicago’s first five-term mayor, although his last term was cut short. His son, Carter Jr., subsequently followed in his father’s political footsteps, serving five terms as mayor in his own right, from 1897 to 1905, and 1911 to 1915. The younger Harrison hoped for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1904, but his party chose Alton Brooks Parker instead, then suffered a crushing defeat by incumbent Theodore Roosevelt. During his final term as mayor, Carter Jr. established the Chicago Vice Commission, closing many—but by no means all—of the Levee district’s notorious brothels. His efforts to clean up the Windy City were defeated by the advent of successors William “Big Bill” Thompson and Anton Cermak, allied with rival crime syndicates during the era of Prohibition. Further Reading Abbott, W. J. Carter Henry Harrison: A Memoir. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1895. Johnson, Claudius. Carter Henry Harrison I: Political Leader. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1928. Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. New York: Crown Publishers, 2003.

H E N N E S S Y, D AV I D C . , J R .

HENNESSY, DAVID C., JR. (1858–1890) On the night of October 15, 1890, Chief David Hennessy left a meeting of the New Orleans Police Board at City Hall and walked to his office on South Basin Street, accompanied by close friend William O’Connor, head of the private Boylan Protective Police. At 11:00 P.M., they departed from the Central Police Station, intending to stop at a nearby café before going to their separate homes. They dined at Dominick Virget’s Oyster House, then said good night and parted, Hennessy proceeding toward his house on Girod Street. On his doorstep, he was ambushed, riddled with shotgun slugs from multiple weapons, but still had strength enough to lurch after the fleeing gunmen, firing several shots from his revolver. O’Connor, hearing gunfire, rushed back to find Hennessy prostrate and dying. “They gave it to me good,” Hennessy gasped, “and I gave it back the best I could.” “Who gave it to you?” asked O’Connor. With his dying breath, the chief wheezed, “Dagos.” O’Connor understood. Chief Hennessy was fingering the Mafia for his assassination, but which Mafia? By 1890, two rival Sicilian clans were engaged in a struggle for control of the New Orleans waterfront and the Crescent City’s Italian community. One “family,” founded by brothers Raffaele and Joseph Agnello, established itself in the French Quarter following the Civil War, but rival Joseph Macheca had killed both Agnellos by summer 1872, expanding to the waterfront with brothers Charles and Salvatore Matranga. There, they ran headlong into another gang, led by Joseph Provenzano, who enjoyed a near monopoly on fruit imported from Latin America. Both sides imported gunmen from their native villages in Sicily, and mayhem ensued in typical Mafia style. Chief Hennessy had been outspoken in opposing immigrant gangsters, but rumors also circulated that he had supported one side over the other in their internecine struggle. The question remained: which “dagos” had murdered the chief ? David Hennessy Jr. was born in New Orleans, sometime in 1858, three years before his father went to war as a private in Company G of the 1st Louisiana Heavy Artillery. In 1868, David Sr. joined the New Orleans Metropolitan Police, a force of “special officers” created by “carpetbag” Governor Henry Clay Warmoth to suppress white mayhem against former slaves and—some said—obstruct voting by “loyal” (white supremacist) Democrats. In 1869, David Sr. was murdered by fellow policeman Arthur Gurrin, either in a tavern or a coffeehouse (according to the Daily Picyune newspaper), leaving his son fatherless at age 11. He joined the Metropolitan Police as a messenger in 1870, and while still a teenager captured two notorious thieves, knocking both men unconscious and dragging them to jail single-handed. The Metropolitan Police dissolved at Reconstruction’s end, in 1877, replaced by the Crescent City Police under Chief Thomas Boylan, and Hennessy soon had his own uniform, winning promotion

213

214

H E N N E S S Y, D AV I D C . , J R .

to detective at age 20. In 1881, he captured Giuseppe Esposito, a notorious mafioso, and secured his deportment to Italy for trial and a life prison term. A year later, Hennessy campaigned for the chief’s office, against Chief of Detectives Thomas Devereaux, but the race took a deadly turn when Hennessy shot and killed his rival. Charged with murder, then acquitted on a plea of self-defense, he left the department to join the Boylan Protective Police, and supervised security at the World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in 1884–1885. An observer from the New York Times noted that Hennessy’s watchmen were “neatly uniformed and are a fine-looking and intelligent body of men, far superior to the regular city force.” Three years later, in 1888, Joseph Ansoetegui Shakspeare won his second term as mayor, unseating corrupt members of a Democratic political machine dubbed the “New Orleans Ring.” He appointed Hennessy as his police chief, with a mandate to suppress immigrant crime along the waterfront. Best evidence suggests that Hennessy surveyed the scene and reached an agreement with the smaller, weaker Provenzano family to oust the Macheca–Matranga clan, which he deemed more dangerous. Whether Hennessy himself had a piece of the action remains a matter of persistent, sometimes heated, speculation. In any case, the rivalry led to his death. Although not the first Mafia killing on U.S. soil, Hennessy’s assassination was the first to rate national headlines. Police initially swept 250 Italian “suspects” off the streets, after which Mayor Shoemaker appointed a “Committee of Fifty” to investigate the killing on October 18. That body first published a threatening open letter to the Italian community, then established what the New York Times described as a “system of secret and anonymous denunciation” to identify likely defendants. Meanwhile, a Pinkerton detective infiltrated the local jail, securing a statement from inmate Emanuele Polizzi that named Joseph Macheca and Charles Matranga as the masterminds of Hennessy’s murder. Newspapers took that story and ran with it. A grand jury indicted 19 alleged conspirators on December 13, including Macheca, Matranga, and four known members of their gang; the remainder had no police records. Nine went to trial on February 16, 1891, before Judge Joshua Baker, and although Emanuele Polizzi did his best for prosecutors on the witness stand, his obvious mental instability left him discredited. Stranger still, William O’Connor refused to testify at all. On March 13, jurors acquitted Macheca and three other defendants, while failing to reach verdicts on three more. Judge Baker himself directed acquittals of Matranga and his second-in-command, Bastian Incardona, based on lack of evidence. Although acquittal should have freed the six defendants, it did not. Spokesmen for the Committee of Fifty called a mass meeting, heralded in the Times-Democrat newspaper with an editorial headlined “Who Bribed the Jury?” Its message: “Rise, outraged citizens of New Orleans! . . . Peaceably if you can, forcibly if you must!”

H E N R I O T, P H I L I P P E

William Parkerson, mouthpiece for the Committee of Fifty, met the assembled mob and demanded that they “remedy the failure of justice.” An estimated 150 vigilantes marched to the Parish Prison, led by Parkerson, chanting, “Kill the dagos!” On arrival, they battered their way inside against feeble resistance from guards, removing 11 of the 19 defendants indicted for Hennessy’s murder (including four who had not yet been tried). Parkerson personally led a 12-man “execution squad” in lynching the 11, urged on by “deafening” cheer from bystanders. Reactions to the New Orleans lynching were mixed. In far-off New York City, a Times headline declared: “Chief Hennessy avenged . . . Italian murderers shot down.” Mayor Shoemaker told reporters, “The Italians had taken the law into their own hands and we had no choice but to do the same.” A national survey of 100 major newspapers found 42 in accord with the lynching, versus 58 opposed. As in most other Southern lynchings, a grand jury refused to indict the identified killers, proclaiming that so many had joined in the act that guilt was “collective.” Italy’s ambassador protested the murders, prompting an eventual $25,000 settlement from Congress. Mayor Shoemaker lost his bid for a third term in 1892, but Charles Matranga fared considerably better. He survived the massacre—by hiding under a mattress, he claimed—and was later released, remaining in control of the New Orleans Mafia until he voluntarily retired in 1922. Further Reading Gentile, Joseph. The Innocent Lynched: The Story of Eleven Italians Lynched in New Orleans. San Jose, CA: Writer’s Showcase, 2000. Hunt, Thomas, and Martha Sheldon, Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace, 2010. Smith, Tom. The Crescent City Lynchings: The Murder of Chief Hennessy, the New Orleans “Mafia” Trials, and the Parish Prison Mob. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2007.

HENRIOT, PHILIPPE (1889–1944) On June 28, 1944, three weeks after the D-Day invasion of occupied France, members of COMAC—Conseil National de la Résistance (the National Council of Resistance)—disguised themselves as militia officers to execute Henriot Philippe, Vichy minister of information and propaganda. Their uniforms persuaded Philippe to open his door, whereupon they shot him, killing him instantly. Unable to identify the assassins, Vichy authorities executed Georges Mandel, a leading resistance spokesman imprisoned since August 1941, on July 7, 1944. Philippe Henriot was born in Reims, 80 miles northeast of Paris in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, on January 7, 1889. Raised in a strict Roman Catholic family, he was conservative by nature and joined the Third Republic’s

215

216

H E N R I O T, P H I L I P P E

largest right-wing party, the Republican Federation, but soon found even that group’s policies too liberal. In 1932, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in Gironde, one of 83 départements of France created after the French Revolution in 1790. His campaign speeches were virtually indistinguishable from those of Adolf Hitler in Germany, coupling anti-Semitism and anticommunism with attacks on Freemasons and opposition to the French parliamentary system. Henriot’s constituents agreed with him sufficiently to grant him a second four-year term in 1936. At the outbreak of World War II, Henriot joined most of his countrymen in condemning Nazi Germany, but he changed his tune the following year, working as a propagandist for the collaborationist Vichy regime of puppet leader Philippe Pétain. Broadcasting over Radio Paris, Henriot praised Germany for its June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union and waged a bitter war of words against the exiled Free French Forces led by Charles de Gaulle from London. He also frequently attacked resistance activists Pierre Dac (né André Isaac) and Maurice Schumann for their anti-Nazi broadcasts over the British Broadcasting Corporation. In January 1944, Pétain appointed Henriot as the Vichy regime’s official minister of information and propaganda, earning him scorn among loyal Frenchmen and their allies as the “French Goebbels.” In fact, however, Henriot never enjoyed the power held by Joseph Goebbels in the Third Reich, and must have known he was a hunted man. In 1943, he joined the paramilitary Milice française, organized that January with German aid to fight COMAC and other French resistance groups, but no evidence exists that he participated in militia raids. If he was armed, his weapons failed to save him when his enemies arrived on his doorstep. Vichy France did not long survive its minister of information and propaganda. Aged Philippe Pétain stepped down as chief of state on August 19, 1944, and France was officially liberated from German control on September 7. Convicted of treason in August 1945, Pétain was sentenced to die, that sentence later commuted to exile on an island off the French Atlantic coast. Some 1,500 other French collaborators were also condemned, and although many of those later received amnesty, estimates of traitors executed without formal trial range from 10,000 to 40,000. A handful of trials for war crimes continued into the 1980s, and René Bousquet, former Vichy secretary general, was assassinated on June 8, 1993, while awaiting trial for crimes against humanity. Further Reading Azema, Jean-Pierre. From Munich to Liberation 1938–1944. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Levendel, Isaac. Not the Germans Alone: A Son’s Search for the Truth of Vichy. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001. Neiberg, Michael. The Blood of Free Men: The Liberation of Paris, 1944. New York: Basic Books, 2012.

HENRY III OF FRANCE

HENRY III OF FRANCE (1551–1589) The summer of 1589 found King Henry III of France embroiled in one of his country’s seemingly endless religious wars, ongoing since 1562 between Catholics and Protestants. Henry, although a staunch defender of the Roman faith, had moderated since his election as king of heavily Protestant Poland in 1573, and was accordingly expelled from Paris by Catholic zealots in December 1588. On August 1, 1589, Henry camped with his army at Saint-Cloud, west of Paris, preparing to retake his capital the following day. That night, Jacques Clément— a fanatical Dominican lay brother from Burgundy—entered Henry’s field headquarters, posing as a friendly messenger. Presented to the king, he stabbed Henry with a dagger, then was cut down on the spot by royal bodyguards. Henry died early the next morning, his death proclaimed an “act of God” by Catholic enemies, who briefly considered canonizing Clément as a saint. Henry was born Alexandre Édouard de France on September 15, 1551, third son of King Henry II and the clear favorite of his mother, Catherine de’ Medici, who doted on him and called him “Precious Eyes” well beyond childhood. At age nine, the year after his father’s death, Catherine made Alexandre the Duke of Angoulême and Orléans. Four years later, she changed his given name to Henri, and in 1566 appointed him Duke of Anjou. That lavish attention, on top of Henry’s superior athletic ability, prompted animosity from his elder brothers. Sickly Francis II succeeded to the throne at age 15, in July 1559, then died in December 1560. Brother Charles, tubercular and probably insane, propelled France into its first War of Religion against Huguenot (Calvinist) Protestants in 1562, declining steadily in health and mental state thereafter until his death, at age 23, in May 1574. Henry III brought baggage of his own to the throne, as he succeeded Charles. An ardent leader of French troops against the Huguenots, credited with defeating Protestant forces in battle at Jarmac (March 1569) and Moncontour (October 1569), he had also helped plan the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of August 1572, although he did not personally join in the resultant slaughter of at least 2,000 Huguenots King Henry III of France, stabbed to death by a (some accounts place the death Dominican priest. (Bettmann/Corbis)

217

218

HENRY III OF FR ANCE

toll as high as 70,000). Still, at age nine, Henry—then Alexandre—had flirted with Protestantism himself, refusing to attend mass and haranguing his sister Margaret to abandon Catholicism. Mother Catherine took him in hand, but he had earned a reputation at court as un petit Huguenot, and the moderation of his religious bigotry from 1573 onward counted against him with his Catholic subjects. Another strike against Henry was the persistent rumor—still debated by historians—of his supposed homosexuality or bisexuality. Some modern researchers refute that claim with reference to Henry’s many famous mistresses, including Italian courtesan Veronica Franco, Louise de La Béraudière du Rouhet, Renée de Rieux de Châteauneuf, and Marie van Kleef, countess of Beaufort. In retrospect, it seems that Henry’s religious and political opponents may have branded him as homosexual based on his dislike of hunting, deemed effeminate and thus a handy weapon to assail his reputation. As successor to King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland, elected by the Polish– Lithuanian Commonwealth in September 1573, Henry ruled only briefly, distracted by warfare in France. He did not arrive in Poland for his coronation until 1574, then left again that June, on learning of Charles IX’s death. Warned that he could not retain the Polish throne unless he returned by May 12, 1575, Henry let the deadline pass and was accordingly deposed. Meanwhile, in France, he was crowned on February 13, 1575. Fifteen months later, he angered French Catholics by signing the Edict of Beaulieu, which granted Huguenots the right of public worship throughout France, except in Paris and at court. Pressure from a newly formed Catholic League of France forced him to backpedal in September 1577 with the Edict of Poitiers, restricting open Protestant worship to the suburbs of one town in each judicial district. Even that reversal failed to satisfy Catholic League founder Henry I, Duke of Guise, who invaded Paris on May 12, 1588, forcing Henry III to flee. The Duke of Guise did not live to enjoy that triumph, however. On December 22, 1588, Henry I spent the night with mistress Charlotte de Sauve, a secret member of Catherine de’ Medici’s female spy network, the “Flying Squadron.” Next morning, summoned to meet the king at his Château de Blois in the Loir Valley, Henry I was ambushed and stabbed to death by the king’s bodyguards, while Henry III stood watching. Henry I’s brother, Louis II, cardinal of Guise, was slain in identical fashion on Christmas Eve, so outraging the Catholic League that zealot Jacques Clément embarked on a path of personal vengeance. At his death, Henry III was succeeded by Henry IV. Further Reading Freer, Martha. Henry III, King of France and Poland: His Court and Times. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1858. Major, J. Russell. From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings, Nobles, and Estates. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.

HENRY IV OF FRANCE

HENRY IV OF FRANCE (1553–1610) Religious strife continued to inflame French politics and society after the assassination of King Henry III in 1589. Twenty years after that event, Catholic zealot François Ravaillac claimed a divine vision commanding him to persuade Henry IV that all Huguenot Protestants must be converted to Catholicism. Over the next 12 months, Ravaillac failed in three attempts to gain a royal audience, finally deciding that Henry must die after he had launched an invasion of the Spanish Netherlands. On May 14, 1610, Ravaillac attended the coronation ceremony of Marie de’ Medici in Paris. When traffic stopped the royal coach on Rue de la Ferronnerie, he rushed forward and stabbed Henry to death. Rescued from a lynch mob by police, Ravaillac was drawn and quartered on May 27, a process that included flaying with pincers and dousing with molten lead, after which Ravaillac was torn limb from limb by horses. Surviving members his family were exiled, forbidden thereafter to use their surname. Born at Pau, in the Basque kingdom of Navarre, on December 13, 1553, Henri de Bourbon was baptized as a Catholic in infancy, but was raised as a Protestant by his Calvinist mother, Queen Jeanne d’Albret. As a teenager, fought with Huguenot troops against Catholic forces in the Wars of Religion, then succeeded to the throne of Navarre with his mother’s death, on June 9, 1572. Two months later, he ranked as a prominent target of Catholic assassins during the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre, but Henry escaped thanks to a timely warning from his new bride, Margaret of Valois, a daughter of massacre instigator Catherine de’ Medici. Survival came with a price, as Henry was compelled to live with his wife and mother-in-law as a Catholic at the royal court in Paris, but he escaped in February 1576 and rejoined Protestant forces in the continuing religious warfare. As the legitimate son of Antoine de Bourbon, Henry became legal heir to the French throne in 1584, upon the death of Francis, Duke of Anjou, brother of reigning King Henry III. However, following Henry III’s assassination in August 1589, the powerful Catholic League contested Henry of Navarre succession, proclaiming his cousin Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, the rightful king. That gesture was futile, since Henry III had imprisoned Charles in 1588 and the cardinal remained in custody until his death, but Henry of Navarre was still forced to fight for his kingdom, supported by troops on loan from Queen Elizabeth I of England. He laid siege to Paris in May 1590, but had failed to take the city by September, when Catholic reinforcements arrived. During the siege, an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 Parisians died from starvation and related diseases. The religious war dragged on until July 25, 1593, when Henry followed the advice of his mistress, Gabrielle d’Estrées, Duchess of Beaufort and Verneuil, by converting to Catholicism. He pacified Protestant critics by saying that “Paris is well worth a Mass.” Crowned on February 27, 1594, he waited

219

220

H E U R E A U X L E B E R T, U L I S E S

four years before issuing the Edict of Nantes, granting substantial rights to Huguenots and finally ending the French Wars of Religion. Despite his widespread popularity in France, Henry faced multiple assassination attempts—some accounts claim 20—before the one that finally ended his left. Details of most attempts are lacking, but we know that Pierre Barrière, an Orléans boatman and soldier of the Catholic League, planned to kill Henry in August 1593. Betrayed by a Dominican priest to whom he had confessed his plan, Barrière was arrested on August 27 and executed four days later, by breaking on the wheel prior to dismemberment. Jean Châtel, the 19-year-old son of a cloth merchant, crept into Henry’s private quarters on December 27, 1594, and attacked him with a knife, slicing the king’s lip. Captured at the scene and convicted of lèse majesté (“injured majesty”), Châtel received the prescribed punishment: the hand with which he struck his king was burned with molten lead, sulfur and wax, before he was dismembered while alive. Under interrogation, Châtel had described his education by Jesuit priests at the Collège de Clermont, which was subsequently closed and confiscated as further punishment for the assault. Punishment for Henry’s assassination also extended beyond the slayer. In January 1611, an acquaintance of François Ravaillac, Maddame Jacqueline d’Escoman, accused Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Valette, Duke of Épernon, of complicity in Henry’s murder. Although she was swiftly imprisoned for life, modern historian Philippe Erlanger claims a link between the duke and Ravaillac through the duke’s mistress, Charlotte du Tillet. Erlanger suggests that du Tillet and Henry’s own mistress, Catherine Henriette de Balzac d’Entragues, planned the assassination. Further Reading Baird, Henry. The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1886. Holt, Mack. The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

HEUREAUX LEBERT, ULISES (1845–1899) On July 26, 1899, General Ulises Heureaux Lebert, president of the Dominican Republic, visited Moca to discuss the country’s current economic crisis with prominent businessmen. As he prepared to leave the meeting, at 4:30 P.M., two gunmen stood waiting. One, 54-year-old Ramón Arturo Cáceres Vasquez, was the son of a politician murdered by Heureaux’s order 21 years earlier. The other, 16-year-old Jacobito Lara, was the son of a Dominican revolutionary. Drawing revolvers, they both fired at Heureaux, who fumbled with his own pistol but could not draw it, since an old war wound crippled his hand. At least

H E U R E A U X L E B E R T, U L I S E S

one bullet struck Heureaux, killing him instantly, although reports disagree as to whether he was shot in the head or the heart. Another round missed and killed an elderly beggar standing nearby. Both gunmen escaped in the confusion, aided by accomplices. Ulises Heureaux, widely known as “Lilis,” was born in Puerto Plata on October 21, 1845, to a Haitian father and a mother from Saint Thomas, raised to be fluent in English, French, and Spanish. He was 16 when Spain annexed the Dominican Republic, and joined in the fight to regain independence, rising to become a primary lieutenant of General Gregorio Luperón. That rebellion was victorious in 1874, but governing the new republic proved to be a dicey proposition. Multiple revolutions rocked the island nation, with Heureaux in the thick of the action. In April 1876, he led a revolt that installed Ulises Francisco Espaillat Quiñones as president for a brief six-month term, forced out by a “superior governing junta.” Two more presidents rose and fell during the last two months of 1876, before four-time president Buenaventura Báez Méndez returned for a fifth time, on December 26. Another coup deposed Báez in March 1878, and Heureaux helped overthrow the next two Dominican presidents within six months. It was during that year that Heureaux arranged the murder of Manuel Cáceres, an influential aide to President Báez, and thus lit the slow fuse for his own assassination two decades later. Gregorio Luperón finally attained the presidency in December 1879, but he preferred life on his Puerto Plata tobacco plantation, delegating much of his authority to Heureaux in Santo Domingo. Fernando Arturo de Meriño succeeded Luperón in September 1880, but Luperón threw his substantial support behind Heureaux at the next election, in September 1882. Dominican politics remained volatile, but Heureaux faced only one minor insurrection during his first two-year term as president. Following Luperón’s advice and example, Heureaux stepped aside in 1884, succeeded by Francisco Gregorio Billini. Billini resisted Heureaux’s attempt to persist in the role of puppet-master, declaring an amnesty for political prisoners, whereupon Heureaux spread rumors that Billini was conspiring to restore unpopular President Cesáreo Guillermo. The fabricated scandal forced Billini’s resignation in May 1885, succeeded by more pliable Vice President Alejandro Woss y Gil. He, in turn, resigned on January 6, 1887, ceding the president’s office once more to Heureaux. During his second term, Heureaux faced a rebellion in the Cibao Valley region, led by rival Casimiro de Moya, but suppressed the insurrection ruthlessly. In 1888, he exiled mentor Gregorio Luperón, presumably fearing his influence with Dominicans who might resent Heureaux’s strong-arm rule if encouraged to rebel by a popular icon. Heureaux also established a network of secret police to monitor signs of unrest, and he set about looting the country

221

222

H E Y D R I C H, R E I N H A R D T R I S TA N E U G E N

for personal profit, prompting one observer to remark that “the separation between the president’s private means and state finances was vague, fluid and almost non-existent.” The combination of kleptocracy and extensive borrowing from European creditors drove the Dominican economy into crisis, slipping toward bankruptcy over the next decade. Mindful of growing discontent, Heureaux resigned on February 27, 1889, then grew restive and reclaimed his office from acting president nine weeks later, on April 30, retaining power thereafter until his own death. Before the final act, in July 1894, he faced an insurrection plot described by the New York Times as “particularly daring and well-planned.” The ringleader, a general named Bobadilla, was arrested with 10 cohorts and shot with his friends looking on, before Heureaux contemptuously pardoned the rest. The Times referred to “innumerable” other plots against Heureaux before he was finally killed, leaving the nation $35 million in debt—a sum 15 times its annual budget. Far from being punished, assassin Ramón Cáceres Vasquez survived to become vice president under Carlos Felipe Morales, and was elevated to the president’s office when Morales resigned in December 1905. Perhaps ironically, Cáceres was himself assassinated on November 19, 1911, by rebels who ambushed his car in Santo Domingo. Further Reading Moya-Pons, Frank. Dominican Republic: A National History. New Rochelle, NY: Hispaniola Books, 1995. Rodman, Selden. Quisqueya: A History of the Dominican Republic. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964. Wucker, Michelle. Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola. New York: Hill and Wang, 1999.

HEYDRICH, REINHARD TRISTAN EUGEN (1904–1942) On May 27, 1942, members of the Czech resistance trained in Britain ambushed a German staff car passing through the Libenˇ suburb of Prague, carrying SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the dreaded Geheime Staatspolizei (“secret state police,” or Gestapo). Jozef Gab cˇ ík’s submachine gun jammed, and Heydrich spotted him, commanding his chauffeur to stop the car. When Heydrich stepped out with pistol in hand, Jan Kubiš hurled a bomb whose explosion wounded both Heydrich and Kubiš. Kubiš escaped on a bicycle, and Gab cˇ ík shot Heydrich’s driver in the leg, to prevent him giving chase. Heydrich was taken to Na Bulovce Hospital, where he slipped into a coma on June 2 and died two days later.

H E Y D R I C H , R E I N H A R D T R I S TA N E U G E N

Reinhard Heydrich as born in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, on March 7, 1904, the son of a prominent opera singer and composer. His first two names derive from characters in the operas Amen, written by his father, and Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. A talented violinist from his youth, Heydrich inherited both his family’s love for music and his father’s German nationalism. An excellent student and athlete, he was nonetheless bullied for his high-pitched voice and rumors of Jewish ancestry—the latter doubtless contributing to Heydrich’s pathological antiGestapo chief Reinhard Heydrich, killed by Czech Semitism in later life. resistance fighters in 1942. (Corbis) Although too young to fight in World War I, Heydrich joined a paramilitary unit at age 15, in February 1919, to “recapture” Halle from communist demonstrators. Soon afterward, he joined an overtly anti-Semitic group, the National German Protection and Shelter League, organized to “fight” Judaism throughout Germany. Heydrich joined the navy in 1922 and was sent to the German Imperial Naval Academy in April 1924, advancing to the rank of ensign, but was discharged in April 1931 for “conduct unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman”—specifically, breaking his engagement with one woman to marry another. Soon after leaving the navy, Heydrich joined the new counterintelligence division of Heinrich Himmler’s Schutzstaffel (“Protection Squadron,” or SS), becoming a Nazi Party member at the same time. By December 1931 he had attained the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer (major), having survived a background check that deemed him “of German origin and free from any colored and Jewish blood.” In summer 1932, Himmler named Heydrich to lead the renamed Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service, or SD), terrorizing opponents of would-be German chancellor Adolf Hitler. Hermann Göring founded the Gestapo in 1933, then ceded control to Himmler the following year. Himmler placed Heydrich in charge of the secret police in April 1934, and his SD was declared the official Nazi intelligence service two months later. After joining in the June 1934 purge of rival Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment) Brownshirts, Heydrich stood among the highest leaders of the new Third Reich.

223

224

H E Y D R I C H, R E I N H A R D T R I S TA N E U G E N

Heydrich’s various duties included orchestration of the 1936 Summer Olympics for use as a Nazi propaganda tool, and leadership of a new Reich Main Security Office, created after the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. In August 1940, he was named as chief of Interpol, a selection that prompted the U.S. FBI to sever contact with the international police agency. In 1941, he ran the Nacht und Nebel (“Night and Fog”) campaign, under which some 7,000 “persons endangering German security” vanished without a trace. In September 1941, Heydrich was named Deputy Reich Protector for Bohemia and Moravia (parts of Czechoslovakia annexed by Germany in 1939), where he became known as the “Butcher of Prague” for his ruthless tactics. Perhaps most critically, he chaired the Wannsee Conference of January 1942 (see sidebar), where Nazi leaders met to sketch the outlines of Hitler’s “Final Solution”—systematic extermination of Jews within German-occupied territory. Although Nazis used Heydrich’s assassination for propaganda purposes, Hitler himself blamed Heydrich for his own demise, saying, “Since it is opportunity which makes not only the thief but also the assassin, such heroic gestures as driving in an open, unarmoured vehicle or walking about the streets unguarded are just damned stupidity, which serves the Fatherland not one whit. That a man as irreplaceable as Heydrich should expose himself to unnecessary danger, I can only condemn as stupid and idiotic.” Still, reprisals were made. Heydrich’s killers sought sanctuary at a church in Prague, but a traitor in the Czech resistance betrayed them and they committed

WANNSEE CONFERENCE On January 20, 1942, 15 senior officials of the Third Reich met in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss mechanics of the genocidal program Adolf Hitler termed the “final solution to the Jewish question.” Schutzstaffel (SS) General Reinhard Heydrich chaired the meeting and presented an agenda calling for all Jews from Europe and French North Africa (present-day Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) to be “relocated” in German-occupied parts of Eastern Europe. Their destination, though not plainly stated in the minutes of the conference, would be a series of extermination camps in Poland, including Auschwitz, Belzec, Chalmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Calculations made at the conference and recorded by SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) Adolf Eichmann included “removal” of 15,153,468 identified Jews from regions under Nazi control or earmarked for future conquest, including England, Ireland, and Switzerland.

HITLER, ADOLF

suicide to avoid capture. Various supporters were also executed, including Bishop Gorazd (né Matˇej Pavlík) of the church where they were found. Hitler also ordered the execution of 10,000 randomly selected Czechs, then changed his mind and targeted the villages of Lidice and Ležáky, believed to be hotbeds of resistance. On June 10, 1942, all male inhabitants of Lidice above the age of 16 were executed, along with all but four of Ležáky’s women. Thirteen thousand others were deported to concentration camps. Eighty-one children from Lidice were gassed at the Chelmno death camp, with a handful preserved for “Germanization.” Further Reading Cowdery, Ray. Reinhard Heydrich: Assassination! Lakeville, MN: USM, Inc., 1994. Dederichs, Mario. Heydrich: The Face of Evil. Drexel Hill, PA: Casemate, 2005. Gerwath, Robert. Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011. MacDonald, Callum. The Killing of SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich. New York: The Free Press, 1989.

HITLER, ADOLF (1889–1945)—ATTEMPTED Few historical figures have inspired more heated passions than Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany’s Third Reich (1933–1945) and architect of the Holocaust that claimed at least 10.3 million civilian lives during World War II. Revered by millions of fascists, bitterly detested by tens of millions more worldwide, Hitler was a natural target for assassination throughout his tenure as Germany’s head of state. Published accounts cite 39 specific attempts to kill Hitler, with vague references to “several” more. A plot to kill Hitler—described, but never actually named—was also central to Geoffrey Household’s novel Rogue Male, published in 1939 and filmed in 1941 as Man Hunt. The basic details of Hitler’s early life are well known. He was born at Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary, on April 20, 1889, moving to Germany with his family at age three. His performance in school deteriorated after his father’s death, in 1903, and he quit two years later, gravitating to Vienna with dreams of becoming an artist. Although failing at that, he devoured reams of anti-Semitic propaganda prior to military service in World War I, where he was wounded and gassed in two separate battles. Following the war, he plunged headlong into paranoid far-right politics and rose through the ranks of the National Socialist (“Nazi”) Party to become its supreme leader. Historians claim four attempts to kill Hitler before he took office as Germany’s chancellor in January 1933, including bungled shootings in Munich (July 1921), Leipzig (1923), Munich (March 15, 1932), Straslund (June 1932), and Nuremberg (July 30, 1932). Enemies also tried to poison Hitler at Berlin’s

225

226

HITLER, ADOLF

Hotel Kaiserhof in 1930, but further details are lacking. Eleven more attempts on Hitler during 1933 alone are vaguely documented but include two specific cases: an unidentified Nazi Sturmabteilung (“Storm Detachment,” or SA) member tried to shoot Hitler in Obersalzberg, and Karl Luttner was arrested on March 4 for plotting to kill Hitler with a bomb at a rally in Köningsberg. In June 1934, Hitler accused SA leaders Ernst Röhm and Julius Uhl of scheming to kill him, using that excuse to launch a purge of the SA known as the “Night of the Long Knives,” during which at least 83 “traitors” to the Nazi Party were Adolf Hitler survived 39 attempted assassinations annihilated. Today, most histoduring his time as dictator of Germany’s Third rians agree that the conspiracy Reich. (Photos.com) charges—and, perhaps, allegations of rampant homosexuality within the SA—were fabricated by SS leader Heinrich Himmler to remove his competition in the party. Other incidents from 1934 include two vague reports of plots by unidentified would-be assassins, and two more substantial attempts. Josef “Beppo” Römer, a member of the far-fight paramilitary Freikorps Oberland, was arrested for plotting to kill Hitler and spent the next five years in Dachau’s concentration camp. In February 1942, the Gestapo jailed him again, for “abetting the enemy,” and he was executed in September 1944. Another 1934 plot, hatched in Berlin by Dr. Helmut Mylius and several others, was also discovered before the would-be assassins could strike. David Frankfurter, a German rabbi’s son who had emigrated to Switzerland, returned to Berlin in 1935, hoping to meet Hitler by chance and kill him. When no opportunity materialized, Frankfurter went back to Switzerland and murdered Nazi activist Wilhelm Gustloff on February 4, 1936. Initially sentenced to 18 years in prison, Frankfurter was pardoned in 1945 and moved to Palestine. Helmut Hirsch, a Jewish student and member of the Black Front—a group of German expatriate anti-Nazis—was arrested on December 20, 1936, for

HITLER, ADOLF

conspiring to bomb Nazi headquarters in Berlin, presumably killing Hitler in the blast. Convicted at trial, he was executed on June 4, 1937. Published accounts say that various émigré groups in Britain, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland plotted to kill Hitler during 1937 and 1938, but none of those plans reached fruition. On November 26, 1937, Gestapo agents arrested mental patient Josef Thomas in Berlin, charging that he planned to shoot Hitler and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring. During the same year, an unidentified SS officer reportedly tried to kill Hitler during a rally at the Berlin Sportpalast. Alexander Foote, a British subject and Soviet spy, reportedly investigated the feasibility of killing Hitler in April 1938. Although he was able to approach Hitler in the Führer’s favorite Berlin restaurant, he did not follow through on the plan and was not discovered, subsequently fleeing from Britain to the USSR in March 1947. Also in 1938, during the Sudetenland crisis with Czechoslovakia, conspirators led by Major F. W. Heinz of the Brandenburg Regiment, abandoned plans to arrest Hitler, in favor of assassination. Their plan collapsed when Hitler flew to meet British prime minister Neville Chamberlain in Munich. Yet another plot from 1938 linked several high-ranking German military officers and diplomats in a plan to kill Hitler if Germany went to war with Czechoslovakia over the Sudetenland. Britain’s capitulation on that issue frustrated the plot, but its organizers went on to play key roles in subsequent conspiracies against Hitler. Maurice Bavaud, a Swiss theology student who spoke no German and had never fired a gun in his life, bought a pistol and traveled to Germany in October 1938, hoping for a chance to kill Hitler. He made his attempt at the Field Marshals’ Hall in Munich, on November 9, 1938, and was arrested at the scene. He was executed by guillotine at Plötzensee Prison, May 14, 1941. Colonel Noel Mason-MacFarlane, military attaché to the British embassy in Berlin, reportedly suggested several plans for killing Hitler during 1938–1939, but all were rejected by London. Johann Georg Elser set a bomb to kill Hitler at Munich’s Bürgerbräukeller beer hall, on November 8, 1939, but Hitler left the building 13 minutes before the explosion, which killed eight others. Franz Halder, chief of the German General Staff, reportedly carried a pistol to one meeting with Hitler in 1939, intending to shoot him, then decided against it at the last moment. Following the German conquest of France in 1940, two plots were hatched against Hitler in Paris. That July, Oberleutnant Fritz-Dietlof Graf von der Schulenburg and Dr. Eugen Gerstenmaier planned to shoot Hitler during a victory parade through the city, but lost their nerve. Around the same time, Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben hatched a plan to arrest Hitler in France, but that scheme also fell through, leaving him to join a more elaborate plot in 1944.

227

228

HITLER, ADOLF

German attorney Nikolaus von Halem, from Oldenberg, plotted Hitler’s death in 1941, but cohort Joseph Roman was arrested and named him under torture, sending von Halem to prison, where he was executed on October 9, 1944. Military plots against Hitler proliferated in 1943 and 1944, as German forces suffered critical defeats on various fronts. A group led by General Karl Hubert Lanz planned to strike in February 1943, when Hitler visited Poltawa in the Ukraine, but a change in the Führer’s itinerary foiled the plan. The same sort of glitches foiled two more plots organized around Smolensk, in the USSR, during March 1943. Captain Rudolf von Gersdorff planned to kill Hitler with a suicide bomb on March 13, at an exhibition of captured Russian weapons in Berlin, but he was unable to get past Hitler’s bodyguards. German nobleman Axel von dem Bussche-Streithorst also volunteered as a suicide bomber, planning to kill Hitler during a troop inspection in East Prussia on November 16, but an Allied air strike deprived him of transportation. Wehrmacht officer Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzins was the next volunteer for a suicide strike against Hitler, in January 1944, during an inspection of new army uniforms, but postponement of the meeting foiled his plan. Another soldier, Eberhard von Breitenbuch, took a concealed pistol to a military briefing with Hitler at the Berghof in Bavaria, on March 11, but SS guards barred him from the room where Hitler met with higher-ranking officers. By July 1944, military conspirators led by Eastern Front veteran Claus von Stauffenberg were committed to eliminating Hitler. After one accomplice, General Helmuth Stieff, failed to succeed with a bomb at a uniform exhibition at Klessheim castle near Salzburg, on July 7, von Stauffenberg decided to do the job himself. He brought a bomb to Obersalzberg on July 11, then refrained from detonating it because top Nazis Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler missed the meeting. Nine days later, his bomb detonated on schedule, during a strategy meeting at Hitler’s “Wolf’s Lair” near Rastenber, East Prussia (now Ke˛trzyn, Poland). The blast killed four persons, but a heavy oak table spared Hitler from serious injury. Following that botched attempt, conspirator Friedrich Fromm panicked and named his associates in futile attempt to save his own life. Von Stauffenberg and three other leading plotters were quickly arrested and executed by firing squad on July 21. Von Stauffenberg’s older brother was convicted in August and executed by slow strangulation. Before investigation of the plot was finally concluded, some 20,000 suspected resistance members were either executed or shipped off to concentration camps. Friedrich Fromm was discharged from the army in September 1944, then sentenced to death for cowardice and shot on March 12, 1945. The last known plot to kill Hitler was allegedly conceived by Albert Speer, Germany’s minister of armaments and war production, in early 1945. Speer later testified that he planned to drop a canister of poison gas into the air-intake

HITLER, ADOLF

system of Hitler’s bunker in Berlin, but a high wall around the access hatch foiled his plot. Adolf Hitler married his longtime mistress, Eva Braun, in the same bunker as Soviet troops advanced through Berlin, on April 28, 1945. Two days later, the couple reportedly committed suicide and their corpses were burned by loyal officers. Some conspiracy theorists, however, still contend that Hitler faked his own death and escaped to South America, along with other Nazis such as Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, and Klaus Barbie. Further Reading Fest, Joachim. Plotting Hitler’s Death: The Story of German Resistance. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 1997. Hoffmann, Peter. The History of the German Resistance, 1933–1945. Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1996. Kershaw, Ian. The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944–1945. New York: Penguin Books, 2011. Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998. Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. Toland, John. Adolf Hitler. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976.

229

This page intentionally left blank

I IDIARTE BORDA, JUAN BAUTISTA (1844–1897) On August 25, 1897, Uruguayan president Juan Idiarte Borda attended a church service at Montevideo’s cathedral on Constitution Square. As he left the church, Idiarte was shot and killed by Avelino Arredondo, a member of a dissident faction within Idiarte’s own Colorado Party. Curiously, the newspaper El Día had erroneously named Arredondo as a participant in a previous attempt on Idiarte’s life, in April 1897. Arrested at the murder scene, Arredondo was convicted and imprisoned, but attempts to locate more conspirators proved fruitless. Juan Idiarte Borda was born and raided in Mercedes, Uruguay, to affluent parents of Basque origin. As a teenager, his talent with the clarinet led relatives to think he would pursue a musical career, but his father’s death in 1860 placed him prematurely in charge of the family’s cattle ranch at age 16. Three years later, Idiarte and his brother, Peter, joined in a revolution against the ruling National Party, led by Venancio Flores, which sparked a civil war in Uruguay and ended with Flores assuming the presidency. Idiarte emerged from that conflict as a lieutenant and parlayed his renown into a new political career, supporting reforms deemed radical at the time. In 1879, Idiarte left Mercedes for Montevideo and won election to parliament. He served until 1886, when personal conflicts with President Máximo Benito Santos Barbosa encouraged Idiarte to leave the country, settling for eight years in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He returned to Uruguay in February 1894, seeking the office vacated by retiring president Julio Herrera y Obes. Three weeks of voting and riotous senate debate climaxed on March 21, when Idiarte edged out interim president Duncan Antonio Stewart Agell by a margin of 47 ballots. From the outset of his term as president, opponents charged Idiarte with electoral fraud. Jose Battle y Ordonez, editor of El Día in Montevideo, was among Idiarte’s harshest critics, publishing charges of vote rigging and corruption that encouraged violent dissent against Idiarte’s regime. In March 1897, members of the White Party led by Aparicio Saravia rebelled against the Colorado Party’s government, sparking another civil war. In April, while alighting from a carriage at his home, Idiarte was accosted by would-be assassin John A. Rabecca, who

232

IGE, JA MES A JIBOL A IDOWU

pressed a pistol to the president’s neck but did not fire. Idiarte’s family took the incident as a warning from the White Party, but the president refused to back down from his enemies. Political struggles continued after Idiarte’s assassination, as Juan Lindolfo Cuestas succeeded the murdered chief of state. By September 1897, White Party forces controlled most of the Uruguayan countryside, and Aparicio Saravia was ranked as the country’s second most powerful figure when Jose Batlle y Ordonez ascended to the presidency in 1903. Savaria died from wounds suffered in battle, in September 1904, and his party did not long survive him. President Batlle held office until 1907, and the Colorado Party ruled Uruguay without interruption until 1959. Further Reading Bethell, Leslie. The Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol. 5, c. 1870–1930. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. López-Alves, Fernando. State Formation and Democracy in Latin America, 1810–1900. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000.

IGE, JAMES AJIBOLA IDOWU (1930–2001) On the night of December 23, 2001, unknown assassins invaded the home of James “Bola” Ige, Nigeria’s minister of justice, in the Bodija district of Ibadan, Oyo State. Proceeding to the bedroom, they killed Ige with multiple closerange gunshots, then fled the residence. Various suspects were arrested and charged with complicity in the slaying, but all were acquitted at trial. Despite speculation of official complicity and/or cover-up, the assassination remains unsolved today. James Ige was born in Zaria, Kaduna State, in north-central Nigeria, on September 13, 1930. His parents, members of the Yoruba tribe, moved to Ibadan in 1943, where Ige completed grammar school and studied at the state university. From there, he proceeded to University College London, earning a law degree at age 26, and was called to the bar 1961, with admission to London’s Inner Temple. Rather than practice in London, he returned to Nigeria that same year and established the fledgling law firm of Bola Ige & Company. Fluent in all three of Nigeria’s major languages—Yoruba, Ibo, and Hausa—Ige cast himself as a reformer, winning designation as a senior advocate of Nigeria for distinguished legal service. At the same time, he became immersed in politics. Under the First Nigerian Republic (October 1, 1963–January 16, 1966), Ige joined the Action Group (AG), a party formed in 1951 to mobilize Western Nigerians to prevent domination of their district by a rival group, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons. At the time, AG founder and former premier of Western Nigeria Obafemi Awolowo faced dissension in the ranks, with deputies Samuel

IGE, JAMES AJIBOLA IDOWU

Akintola and Olusola Olaosebikan vying for endorsement as Awolowo’s political heir. That rivalry ended with Akintola’s assassination during the military coup that ended the First Republic in January 1966. Nigeria’s new ruler, General Yakubu “Jack” Dan-Yumma Gowon, named Ige as commissioner for agriculture for Nigeria’s western region, operating from the capital at Ibadan. A year later, that region was abolished, subdivided into Lagos State and Western State, with Ige serving the latter from Ibadan. There, he befriended army commander and future president Olusegun Obasanjo, while dividing his time between official duties and antiracism campaign sponsored by the World Council of Churches. General Murtala Ramat Mohammed led a successful coup against Gowon’s regime on July 29, 1975, and proclaimed himself head of state, with Obasanjo as his second-in-command. Ige, still loyal to Obafemi Awolowo, joined his newest vehicle, the United Party of Nigeria (UPN). Following General Mohammed’s assassination in 1976, General Obasanjo assumed control and laid the groundwork for establishment to Nigeria’s Second Republic in 1979. In October of that year, Ige won election as the governor of Oyo State, serving one term before he lost a reelection big to Dr. Victor Omololu Olunloyo in 1983. Ige contested that election, but left office in October, when the courts ruled against him. Olunloyo, in turn, was deposed three months later by another military coup. The leaders of that uprising detained Bola Ige for two years, on charges of misappropriating UPN funds, but he was liberated in August 1985, following yet another coup, led by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. Returning to legal practice with a sideline in writing, Ige shunned further political activity until May 1999, when a new constitution established Nigeria’s Fourth Republic and institution of sweeping democratic reforms. (A short-lived Third Republic had been virtually stillborn during 1993.) Ige ran for president, representing a new Alliance for Democracy, but lost the race to Olusegun Obasanjo—who then appointed Ige first as minister of mines and power (1999–2000), then as minister of justice and attorney general. On the eve of his assassination, Ige was earmarked to serve as Africa’s representative on the United Nations International Law Commission. Some Nigerians blamed President Obasanjo for Ige’s assassination, although no clear motive was advanced beyond assertions that he may have uncovered deep-seated government corruption and planned to expose it. Calls for establishment of an independent truth commission have thus far been ignored. Further Reading Ahworegba, Prosper. The Nigerian 100: The Most Influential Nigerians of All Time. Dartford, United Kingdom: Xlibris, 2008.

233

234

INEJIRO ASANUMA

Banjo, Ayo, ed. Bola Ige: Passage of a Modern Cicero. Lagos, Nigeria: Bookcraft, Ltd., 2003. Mohammed, Abubakar. Chief Bola Ige and the Destabilization of Nigeria. Zaria, Nigeria: Centre for Democratic Development Research and Training, 1999.

INEJIRO ASANUMA (1898–1960) On October 12, 1960, Inejiro Asanuma, head of Japan’s Social Democratic Party (SDP), attended a debate among parliamentary candidates at Tokyo’s Hibiya Hall. During those proceedings, 17-year-old Otoya Yamaguchi leaped onto the stage and attacked Inejiro with a short sword (wakizashi), fatally wounding him in full view of the audience and reporters. Police subdued Otoya and soon identified him as a member of a right-wing, ultranationalist group, collectively known in Japan as uyoku dantai. On November 2, Otoya hanged himself from a light fixture in his cell at a juvenile detention facility, using a rope made from torn and knotted sheets. He left a message written on the wall in toothpaste: “Seven lives for my country. Ten thousand years for His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor!” Inejiro Asanuma was born in the Chiyoda district of Tokyo, on December 27, 1898. His mother died in childbirth, leaving Inejiro to be raised by his father until his father’s death from cancer left him orphaned. Inejiro joined one of Japan’s many uyoku dantai in the 1930s, supporting the military regime of General Hideki T¯oj¯o. In 1936, he was elected to a seat in the National Diet, but dissatisfaction with the course and conduct of the ensuing World War II led Inejiro to retire from politics in 1942, returning after the cessation of hostilities as a left-wing activist promoting socialism. He also attempted to block legislation in the Diet that established Japanese politician Inejiro Asanuma, stabbed be- a treaty of mutual cooperation fore a live audience in October 1960. (Getty and security between Japan Images) and the United States. In 1959,

INEJIRO ASANUMA

he faced a storm of condemnation after visiting the People’s Republic of China, where he denounced the United States as “the shared enemy of China and Japan.” Many fellow SDP members chastised him for briefly affecting a Zhongshan suit like that worn by China’s Chairman Mao Zedong, but in death Inejiro was rehabilitated, his murder cast as a campaign issue in 1960. Socialists depicted young assassin Otoya as a “cat’s paw of monopolistic capitalist forces,” specifically referring to the ruling Liberal Democrats led by Premier Hayato Ikeda. Even Otoya’s suicide became a political issue, as acting SDP chairman Saburo Eda told reporters, “The fact that an important criminal was able to commit suicide exposes the utter irresponsibility of the authorities in charge.” Meanwhile, a still photo of the assassination, snapped by photographer Yasushi Nagao, won both the Pulitzer Prize and the World Press Photo Award for 1960. Although the SDP failed to carry the 1960 elections, Otoya Yamaguchi emerged as a martyr for the rabid uyoku dantai. Neo-fascists presented his parents with a burial coat, kimono, and belt, then escorted his corpse to a memorial service. Fifty years later, in October 2010, they still celebrated his murder of Inejiro, in a ceremony convened at Hibiya Park on the assassination’s golden anniversary. Further Reading Inejiro Asanuma Assassination Footage 1960. Dailymotion. http://www.dailymotion .com/video/x66vpe_inejiro-asanuma-assassination-foota_news. Siniawer, Eiko. Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists: The Violent Politics of Modern Japan, 1860–1960. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008. Zelizer, Barbie. About to Die: How News Images Move the Public. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

235

This page intentionally left blank

J JACKSON, ANDREW (1767–1845)— ATTEMPTED On January 30, 1835, President Andrew Jackson attended the funeral of South Carolina congressman Warren Davis at the United States Capitol. Afterward, as Jackson left the building from the East Portico, unemployed British housepainter Richard Lawrence aimed a pistol at Jackson, but the weapon misfired. Bystanders, including legendary frontiersman (then congressman) Davy Crockett, disarmed Lawrence, with some accounts claiming that Jackson used a cane to strike his would-be killer. In custody, Lawrence raved incoherently, blaming Jackson for his unemployment and claiming that he—Lawrence—was King Richard III of England (deceased for 350 years). At trial in April, prosecuted by Francis Scott Key, Lawrence was found insane and committed to an asylum where he died in June 1861. Aside from the first attempted U.S. presidential assassination, Jackson had also experienced the first attack on an U.S. president, two years earlier. On May 6, 1833, he sailed aboard the USS Cygnet from Washington to Fredericksburg, Virginia, to lay the cornerstone for a monument to George Washington’s mother. Stopping along the way near Alexandria, Jackson was accosted and punched by Robert B. Randolph, earlier dismissed from the navy for embezzlement by Jackson’s order. Again, bystanders—this time including author Washington Irging—captured Jackson’s assailant, but the president declined to press charges in that case. Born at some uncertain point on the border between North and South Carolina, on March 15, 1767, Andrew Jackson was the son of Scot-Irish colonists. In later life, he referred to rumors that his “Mother . . . [was] held to public scorn as a prostitute who intermarried with a Negro, and [that his] . . . eldest brother [was] sold as a slave in Carolina,” but no such claims were ever substantiated. He joined a local militia during the American Revolution, at age 13, and was captured by British troops with one of his brothers, scarred by a saber in captivity when he refused to shine a redcoat officer’s boots. That experience, coupled with another brother’s death in battle, left Jackson with a bitter hatred of England at war’s end. Despite his own erratic education, Jackson later taught school, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in North Carolina, practicing along the frontier. He was a delegate to North Carolina’s constitutional convention in 1796 and won election to Congress that same year. In 1797, he advanced to the U.S.

238

JACKSON, ANDREW

Senate, but resigned after a year in office. Appointed to the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1798, he held that post until 1804, simultaneously operating a plantation run by slaves and serving as a general in the state militia. During the War of 1812, Jackson initially waged rural campaigns against hostile Native American tribes, then secured fame by defeating British troops in the Battle of New Orleans, ironically fought two weeks after the United States and Britain made peace with the Treaty of Ghent. Two years later he was back in action, leading troops against more hostile tribesmen in the First Seminole War. Tennessee’s legislature sent Jackson back to the U.S. Senate in 1822, and two years later he ran for president against three fellow members of the DemocraticRepublican Party: John Quincy Adams, William Harris Crawford, and Henry Clay. Jackson won the popular vote, with 151,271 ballots to 113,122 for Adams, and also shaded Adams by a margin of 15 votes in the Electoral College, but still had only 99 votes, with 131 required for victory. Under terms of the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the House of Representatives decided the election, choosing Adams over Jackson in a move that many observers denounced as a “corrupt bargain.” Jackson resigned from the Senate in October 1825, but rebounded three years later with another presidential campaign, this time unseating incumbent Adams with a decisive electoral margin of 178 to 83. He won reelection in 1832 with an even more decisive edge, receiving 219 electoral votes versus 49 for National Republican Party nominee Henry Clay, and seven for William Wirt, representing the Anti-Masonic Party. Jackson’s eight years in office were marked by successive bitter controversies. He paid off America’s national debt in 1835—the only such accomplishment by any president—then saw the country plunge into severe depression two years later, increasing the debt tenfold. His reliance on the “spoils system” prompted charges of cronyism and corruption, and his dismantling of the national bank caused financial speculation and manipulation to proliferate. His relentless campaign of Indian removal amounted, in effect, to ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from land desired by whites, claiming the lives of some 4,000 Cherokees alone on the long “Trail of Tears” from the Deep South to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). On his last day in office, Jackson admitted two lingering regrets: that he “had been unable to shoot Henry Clay or to hang John C. Calhoun.” Tuberculosis claimed the former president’s life at his Tennessee plantation, on June 8, 1845. Further Reading Brands, H. W. Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times. New York: Anchor Books, 2006. Meacham, Jon. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. New York: Random House, 2008. Wilentz, Sean. Andrew Jackson. New York: Times Books, 2005.

J A C K S O N , W H A R L E S T, S R .

JACKSON, WHARLEST, SR. (1930–1967) At 8:00 P.M. on February 27, 1967, Wharlest Jackson left his job at the Armstrong Rubber Company plant in Natchez, Mississippi, driving home through a downpour of rain. As local secretary of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), working at a factory infested by Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members, Jackson routinely checked his pickup truck for bombs and evidence of sabotage, but this night the weather discouraged his normal precautions. On Minor Street, a few blocks from his home, an explosive charge detonated in the pickup’s cab, demolishing the vehicle and killing Jackson instantly. The crime remains officially unsolved today. Wharlest Jackson was a Natchez native, born on December 7, 1930, and raised under Mississippi’s system of strict racial segregation, enforced by police brutality and vigilante mayhem. He served in the Korean War and subsequently joined the NAACP to fight discrimination, despite numerous murders of civil rights activists throughout the Magnolia State in the 1950s and 1960s. In August 1965, fellow Armstrong employee and NAACP activist George Metcalfe was crippled for life by a car bomb outside the factory. Two years later, with the movement gaining ground, Jackson was offered promotion to a formerly “white” position at the plant, earning an extra 17 cents per hour for his wife and five children. Exerlena Jackson begged her husband not to accept the new job, but he dismissed the dangers involved as a price of progress. Although no one has been charged with Jackson’s murder, FBI spokesmen place the blame on a KKK faction known as the Silver Dollar Group, whose members identified themselves with silver dollars minted in the year of their birth. The splinter group drew its members from various larger Klan groups in Mississippi and Louisiana, frustrated by advances in civil rights for African Americans and the “old” Klan’s inability to hold the color line. Aside from Wharlest Jackson’s slaying, Silver Dollar Klansmen are suspected in George Metcalfe’s near-fatal car bombing; in the July 12, 1964, disappearance of black victim Joe Edwards in Ferriday, Louisiana; and in the arson slaying of Frank Morris, also in Ferriday, on December 10, 1964. Edwards was apparently selected as a random target, because he worked as a porter at a motel where the Klansmen gathered. Morris was accused—falsely, as it appears—of making sexual advances to white women who patronized his shoe-repair shop. All of those “cold” cases remain open and subject to future prosecution if sufficient evidence is ever found, but most identified members of the Silver Dollar Group are now deceased. Further Reading Davis, Jack. Race against Time: Culture and Separation in Natchez Since 1930. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001. Newton, Michael. The Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi: A History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010.

239

240

JA MES I, KING OF SCOTS

“Wharlest Jackson Case.” The Civil Rights Cold Case Project. http://coldcases.org/ cases/wharlest-jackson-case. Whitehead, Don. Attack on Terror: The FBI Against the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1970.

JAMES I, KING OF SCOTS (1394–1437) Scotland was in turmoil in the latter months of 1436. Allied with France in an ill-conceived war against England, King James taxed the estates of Scottish nobles to support his army, and was nearly arrested in October by opponent Sir Robert Graham. In February 1437, James and his queen, Joan Beaufort, sought refuge at the Blackfriars monastery outside Perth. On February 21, the king’s traitorous cousin, Sir Robert Stewart, admitted Graham and a small group of assassins to the monastery. Servants warned James in time for him to hide inside the monastery’s sewer, but its exit was blocked and the assassins killed him there. Queen Joan, though wounded, managed to escape. In May, the leading conspirators—Graham, Walter of Atholl, and Walter’s grandson Robert Stewart—were publicly tortured to death. James I was the youngest son of King Robert III, born at Dunfermline in July 1394. Both of his brothers died while he was still a child, Robert in infancy, and David under vague circumstances while detained at Falkland Palace by Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany. Despite his exoneration by parliament, tradition has it that Steward ordered David starved to death. Prince James experienced his first personal clash with hostile Scottish nobles in February 1406, when he fought a skirmish with Archibald Douglas, Duke of Touraine, and was forced to hide on Bass Rock, off the Scottish coast. Rescued in March, he sailed for France, but English pirates captured his ship on March 22 and delivered James to King Henry IV of England as a hostage. Robert III died 12 days later, as James settled in for a strange 18-year captivity. Life could have been worse for a medieval prisoner. At HenTraitors murdered James I, King of Scots, in 1437. ry’s court, James received a firstclass education, served with (Getty Images)

J O H N PA U L I I

British troops in battle against France during 1420–1421, and married the Earl of Somerset’s daughter in 1424. Meanwhile, long-winded negotiations for his release dragged on, encompassing exchange of other prisoners. Murdoch Stewart, son of the Duke who allegedly killed James’s brother, had been captured in 1402 and was finally exchanged for Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland, in 1416. He rushed home to succeed his father as Duke of Albany and governor of Scotland, while James awaited payment of £40,000 for his release in April 1424. That ransom was obtained by raising taxes, a circumstance that brought James back to Scotland with one strike against him in the public mind. Formally crowned on May 21, 1424, James anticipated the hostility of nobles allied with the Duke of Albany. In March 1425, James arrested Murdoch, two of his sons, and 25 of their allies on charges of treason. Murdoch, his sons, and a fourth defendant were convicted in May, executed by decapitation at Stirling Castle. Others detained by James at various times included Alexander of Islay, Earl of Ross (1428), Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Douglas (1431), and George II, Earl of March (1434). Each in turn was freed upon payment of ransom, which James used for the construction of Linlithgow Palace in West Lothian. Such treatment of his adversaries, coupled with ever-increasing taxation, encouraged rebellion against James I. His ill-conceived alliance with France against England, meanwhile, renewed hostilities across the border. James besieged the English outpost at Roxburgh Castle in August 1436, but suffered an embarrassing defeat. Two months later came the attempt to arrest him, leading ultimately to his murder. Jamed II, only seven years old at his father’s death, ruled as best a child can under the guidance of Archibald Douglas—his first cousin and the same earl imprisoned and ransomed by his father in 1431. Archibald died in June 1439, and James II literally turned the tables on his keepers in November 1440, seizing and executing successor William Douglas and his brother during a banquet in Edinburgh. Sporadic family feuding continued until August 1460, when James II died in an attack on the same Roxburgh Castle that had broken his father’s spirit 24 years earlier. Further Reading Balfour-Melville, Evan. James I, King of Scots. London: Methuen, 1936. Brown, Michael. James I. Edinburgh: Tuckwell Press, 2000. Magnusson, Magnus. Scotland: The Story of a Nation. New York: Grove Press, 2003. Traquair, Peter. Freedom’s Sword: Scotland’s Wars of Independence. London: HarperCollins, 1998.

JOHN PAUL II (1920–2005)—ATTEMPTED On May 13, 1981, while blessing visitors to St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, Pope John Paul II was shot four times and critically wounded by Turkish assassin

241

242

J O H N PAU L I I

Mehmet Ali Agca, ˘ who previously murdered journalist and human rights activist Abdi I˙pekçi in Istanbul, on February 1, 1979. A member of the ultranationalistic Grey Wolves organization, Agca ˘ this time was captured at the crime scene and an accomplice, Oral Çelik, fled without joining in the attack. Convicted of attempted murder in July 1981, A˘gca was pardoned, at the pope’s request, by the Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi in 2000; he was then extradited to Turkey for trial in the I˙pekçi murder and two 1970s bank robberies. Turkish authorities released him on January 18, 2010. Pope John Paul II was born Karol Józef Wojtyła in Wadowice, Poland, on May 18, 1920, rising through the ranks of the Roman Catholic Church to become that institution’s second-longest serving pontiff and the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI died in 1523. Between his election as pope in 1978 and his death in April 2005, John Paul II visited 129 nations in pursuit of a “universal call to holiness.” He also beatified 1,340 people and canonized 483 saints— both figures exceeding the totals for all preceding popes combined. Perhaps fittingly, John Paul II was, himself, beatified on May 1, 2011. Mehmet Agca’ ˘ s attack on the pope was not the only attempt to kill John Paul II. On May 12, 1982, Belgian lawyer and Catholic priest Juan María Fernández y Krohn, ordained in 1978, tried to stab the pope with a bayonet in Fatima, Portugal. Reports differ on whether the pope was wounded, but if so, the injuries were not severe. At trial, Fernández announced his opposition to changes imposed on Catholicism by the Second Vatican Council in 1965, and further claimed that John Paul II was a covert Soviet agent corrupting the Vatican. Sentenced to six years in prison, Fernández served three, then was deported to Belgium (by which time he had left the priesthood). Another plot against the pope was hatched in 1994 by Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and his mentor, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The pope’s assassination, scheduled to be carried out by a suicide bomber on January 15, 1995, during a papal motorcade through Makati, in the Philippines, was part of a global plan that included bombing of 12 airliners in flight from Asia to the United States, and crashing a 13th aircraft into the Virginia headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Yousef trained a score of terrorists for their roles in the Bojinka (“ big noise”) plot, but it was scuttled after an apartment fire in Manila exposed one of the group’s cells. Multiple conspiracy theories still surround Mehmet Agca’ ˘ s attempt to kill Pope John Paul II. Agca ˘ contributed to that confusion with his ever-changing stories, prompting prosecutor Antonio Marini to tell reporters that “Agca ˘ has manipulated all of us, telling hundreds of lies, continually changing versions, forcing us to open tens of different investigations.” One theory linked the Grey Wolves and the CIA to NATO’s covert “Operation Gladio,” encompassing a host of criminal activities designed to keep right-wing governments in power

J O H N PA U L I I

by promoting an “atmosphere of tension” through terrorist actions blamed on leftist revolutionaries. Another popular theory blamed the murder attempt on communists, including the Soviet KGB, East Germany’s ministry for state security, and/or the Bulgarian secret service. In that scenario, the pope was targeted for supporting Solidarity, a noncommunist labor movement led by Lech Wałe˛sa in the pope’s native Poland. KGB director Yuri Andropov had earlier issued a memorandum to Russian schoolteachers, reading in part: “The Pope is our enemy. . . . Due to his uncommon skills and great sense of humor he is dangerous, because he charms everyone, especially journalists. Besides, he goes for cheap gestures in his relations with the crowd, for instance, [he] puts on a highlander’s hat, shakes all hands, kisses children, etc. . . . It is modeled on American presidential campaigns. . . . Because of the activities of the Church in Poland our activities designed to atheize the youth not only cannot diminish but must intensely develop. . . . In this respect all means are allowed and we cannot afford sentiments.” The pope himself had a different view of the matter. On June 26, 2000, he released the long-suppressed “Third Secret of Fatima,” last in a series of supposed visions or prophecies delivered by the Blessed Virgin Mary to three Portuguese children in 1917. Noting that his brush with death occurred on the 64th anniversary of Mary’s supposed first appearance, John Paul II published the allegedly divine message foretelling an apocalypse and calling for repentance. Perhaps ironically, former Trappist monk Laurence James Downey had hijacked an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to London on May 2, 1981—one day before the pope was shot—demanding among other things that John Paul II reveal the third secret of Fatima. Instead, he received a five-year prison term for air piracy. Further Reading Henze, Paul. The Plot to Kill the Pope. New York: Macmillan, 1985. Sterling, Claire. The Time of the Assassins: Anatomy of an Investigation. New York: Henry Holt, 1983. West, Nigel. The Third Secret: The CIA, Solidarity and the KGB’s Plot to Kill the Pope. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

243

This page intentionally left blank

K KABILA, LAURENT-DÉSIRÉ (1939–2001) On January 16, 2001, while meeting with one of his top advisors, LaurentDésiré Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was shot by one of his bodyguards. Other guards killed the shooter, Rashidi Kasereka, as he tried to flee the scene. Kabila was rushed to Kinshasa’s hospital, where he died on January 18. Son Joseph Kabila succeeded his father on January 26, describing the assassination as the first move in an abortive coup. Police named a cousin of Kabila, Colonel Eddy Kapend, as the coup’s ringleader, charging him and 135 others with conspiracy. A military tribunal convicted Kapend and 89 other defendants, exonerating 45. Kapend and 25 others were sentenced to death, but execution was deferred, sending them to prison with the 64 other convicted defendants who received prison terms ranging from six months to life. Observers of the proceedings differ in their opinions concerning the guilt of those convicted. Laurent-Désiré Kabila was a member of the Luba tribe, born at Baudoinville in the former province of Katanga, on November 27, 1939. His affluent parents sent him abroad to study in France and Serbia, followed by graduation from Tanzania’s University of Dar es Salaam. When Belgium granted independence to the Congo, in June 1960, Kabila was a member of the General Association of the Baluba People of Katanga, allied with Patrice Lumumba in conflict against rival Moise Tshombe. Lumumba won election as the DRC’s first prime minister, but was assassinated in September 1960. Five different prime ministers held office in the next 12 months, before Cyrille Adoula managed to complete a three-year tenure. Under Adoula’s regime, in 1962, Kabila served as cabinet chief for Minister of Information Ferdinand Tumba, while also being a member of North Katanga’s provincial assembly. Kabila’s longtime adversary, Moise Tshombe, took office as prime minister in July 1964, beginning a new round of conflict and violence. Kabila joined the Conseil National de Libération, organizing revolution in the eastern Congo, where he was assisted during 1965 by Che Guevara. Guevara’s diaries indicate his disappointment in Kabila as a revolutionary, noting his habitual distraction, tardiness in joining various guerrilla actions, and failure to supply agreed-upon support. Although Kabila possessed “genuine qualities of a mass leader,” Guevara found him sadly lacking in “revolutionary seriousness.”

246

K A B I L A , L AU R E N T- D É S I R É

That judgment aside, Kabila persevered in his war against Tshombe and his successors, fighting on after the DRC was reborn in October 1971 as the Republic of Zaire. Leading a new People’s Revolutionary Party (PRP), armed and bankrolled by Chinese communists, Kabila established a stronghold in South Kivu Province, declaring it a breakaway Marxist state, growing wealthy over time from the proceeds of smuggling, extortion, and robbery. Kabila disappeared without a trace in 1988, leaving the PRP to flounder and disband. He was presumed dead for eight years, then resurfaced in November 1996, at the helm of a new Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, leading attacks on the regime of President Mobutu Sese Seko with backing from Rwanda and Uganda. The campaign was successful, forcing Mobutu into exile by May 1997, whereupon Kabila proclaimed himself president, suspended the constitution, and changed the country’s name back from Zaire to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Abandoning his former hard-line Marxism, Kabila offered concessions to foreign investors, but critics denounced him as corrupt, declaring that he had simply revived the former South Kivu kleptocracy on a larger scale. Complaints of despotism and human rights violations proliferated. By 1998, Kabila’s former allies in Uganda and Rwanda had established yet another revolutionary group—the Congolese Rally for Democracy—to depose him. So began the Second Congo War, with Kabila seeking new allies in Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. Despite insertion of United Nations peacekeeping forces, that war was still ongoing at the time of Kabila’s assassination.

SECOND CONGO WAR The Second Congo War—also called the Great War of Africa—embroiled troops from nine African nations, plus 20-odd irregular guerrilla bands, between August 1998 and July 2003. It ranks as the deadliest war in African history, with an estimated death toll of 5.4 million (extended through 2008 to include victims of war-related starvation and disease). Millions more were driven from their homes and native countries, into foreign exile. The initial conflict involved attempts by neighboring Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda to unseat Congolese president Laurent Kabila, once their ally in another war against his predecessor. Under siege, Kabila formed new alliances with Angola, Chad, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, whereas Sudan joined the ranks of his opponents. Despite a ceasefire and establishment of a transitional government in 2003, sporadic fighting continued, and international aid groups logged 1,000 deaths per day from war-related causes.

K A D Y R O V, A K H M A D A B D U L K H A M I D O V I C H

Conspiracy theories surround Kabila’s murder. Critics of the trial that followed his assassination—including Mwenze Kongolo, who served as Kabila’s minister of justice—claim that those convicted of plotting to slay Kabila are scapegoats. Some investigative journalists believe the plot was orchestrated by former child soldiers from South Kivu. Others point to agents of UNITA, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, which had been at war with the Angolan government since 1961. Yet another theory claims Rwandan soldiers were involved, claiming that Colonel James Kabarebe, commander of Rwandan forces inside the DRC, announced Kabila’s death with the remark, “Good news from Kinshasa. Our boys did it.” See also: Lumumba, Patrice Émery (1925–1961).

Further Reading Autesserre, Séverine. The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Ngolet, François. Crisis in the Congo: The Rise and Fall of Laurent Kabila. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History. London: Zed Books, 2002. Trefon, Theodore. Congo Masquerade: The Political Culture of Aid Inefficiency and Reform Failure. London: Zed Books, 2011.

KADYROV, AKHMAD ABDULKHAMIDOVICH (1951–2004) On May 9, 2004, during a parade commemorating victory over Nazi German in World War II, a bomb exploded at the Dinamo football stadium in Grozny, capital of the Chechen Republic. The blast killed President Akhmad Kadyrov, two of his bodyguards, the chairman of the Chechen State Council, and at least a dozen others (some reports say 30-plus). Another 56 persons were wounded, including Colonel General Valery Baranov, commander of Russian forces in Chechnya, who lost a leg in the explosion. Investigators determined that the charge had been planted inside one of the stadium’s concrete pillars, during recent repairs. The crime remains officially unsolved. Akhmad Kadyrov was born to Chechen parents at Karaganda, in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (now Kazakhstan), on August 23, 1951. When he was six years old, his family returned to Chechnya, then known as the Chechen– Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR). Kadyrov began formal study of Islam in 1980, at Mir-i-Arab Madrasah in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, continuing at Uzbekistan’s Tashkent Islamic University through 1986. By the early 1990s he was back in Chechnya, leading his own Islamic Institute in the town of Kurchaloy.

247

248

K A D Y R O V, A K H M A D A B D U L K H A M I D O V I C H

Following dissolution of the Soviet Union, former Russian air force general Dzhokhar Dudayev led a rebellion against the Chechen–Ingush ASSR Supreme Soviet, on September 6, 1991, declaring Chechen independence from Russia. By November, Russian troops had occupied Grozny. The country split in June 1992, with civil war erupting. Akhmad Kadyrov soon emerged as a prominent military leader against Russian forces and their allies, winning appointment in 1995 as chief mufti (interpreter of Islamic law) for the fledgling Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Before the Khasavyurt Accord ended the war in August 1996, fighting had claimed an estimated 20,000 military lives, Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov, killed in a while killing at least 50,000 2004 bombing. (AFP/Getty Images) civilians. The cessation of formal hostilities brought no true peace to Chechnya. Grozny lay in ruins, and chaos reigned in the countryside, with local warlords establishing virtual fiefdoms. In the face of economic collapse, ransom kidnapping quickly emerged as source of income, with 1,300 abductions reported between 1996 and 1999. Nominal authorities in Grozny declared a state of emergency in 1998, but open fighting continued. In July of that year, at Gudermes, 50 people died in a battle between the Chechen National Guard and Muslim guerrillas. In March 1999, after Russian general Gennady Shpigun was kidnapped from Grozny’s airport (found dead a year later), Moscow planned a new invasion of Chechnya. War resumed in September 1999, after Chechen Muslims invaded Dagestan, then were chased back into Chechnya by Russian forces. Despite his deep-seated belief in Islam, Chief Mufti Akhmad Kadyrov opposed Wahhabism, the ultra-fundamentalist creed espoused by most of Chechnya’s Muslim militias. At the outbreak of the Second Chechen War, he shocked his coreligionists by switching sides and offering support to Russian occupation forces inside Chechnya. Chechen separatist leader Aslan

KAHANE, MEIR

Maskhadov immediately dismissed Kadyrov as chief mufti, but Kadyrov’s turnaround gained points for him in Moscow. When Russian troops secured nominal control of Chechnya in July 2000, President Vladimir Putin named Kadyrov as acting head of state. Voters selected him as Chechnya’s first president on October 5, 2003. Kadyrov was succeeded by Sergey Abramov, a Moscow-based executive of Russian Railways, who served as acting president from May to August 2004, when Putin replaced him with Alu Alkhanov, a career policeman who fought for Russia in the First Chechen War. In February 2007, Putin demoted Alkhanov to serve as Russia’s deputy minister of justice, replacing him with present incumbent Ramzan Kadyrov, a one-time Chechen rebel. Further Reading Greene, Stanley. Open Wound: Chechnya 1994–2003. London: Trolley Books, 2004. Smith, Sebastian. Allah’s Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya. London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2005.

KAHANE, MEIR (1932–1990) On November 5, 1990, controversial rabbi and politician Meir Kahane delivered a speech in a lecture hall at Manhattan’s Marriott hotel, on Lexington Avenue. As he prepared to leave, shortly after 9:00 P.M., a gunman disguised as an Orthodox Jew approached Kahane and shot him in the neck at close range with a .357 Magnum revolver. Fleeing on foot, the assassin tried to commandeer a taxi cab outside the Marriott, then shot off-duty policeman Carlos Acosta, when Acosta tried to arrest him. Though gravely injured, Acosta returned fire, striking his assailant in the face. Captured soon afterward, the killer was identified as El Sayyid Nosair, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Egypt, residing in New Jersey. At his murder trial, in December 1991, jurors acquitted Nosair of killing Kahane but convicted him of assault, possession of an illegal firearm, and the unrelated shooting a U.S. Postal Inspection Service agent. He received a sentence of 7 to 22 years in prison. Martin David Kahane, more commonly known as “Meir,” was born in Brooklyn on August 1, 1932, the son of an Orthodox rabbi and member of the Revisionist Zionism movement led by Ze’ev Jabotinsky. A frequent visitor to the Kahane home, Jabotinsky had trained Jews in military tactics since his 1919 discharge from the British army, advocating creation of a Jewish state based on the British imperial model. He died in New York, in August 1940, while visiting a paramilitary “self-defense” camp run by Betar, a revisionist youth group he founded in Latvia 20 years earlier. Meir Kahane was a member of Betar, and joined in protest demonstrations against British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin, who restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine after World

249

250

K AHANE, MEIR

Controversial rabbi and politician Meir Kahane, assassinated in November 1990. (Associated Press)

War II. At age 15, Kahane was arrested for lobbing eggs and tomatoes at Bevin, upon his arrival at New York’s waterfront. Kahane pursued an Orthodox education at the Yeshivah of Flatbush (Brooklyn) and the Brooklyn Talmudical Academy, before receiving his rabbinical ordination. A bachelor’s degree in political science followed, from Brooklyn College, after which he studied law, earning a JD and an LLM. At 26, he was a rabbi for a synagogue in Queens, but sparked rebellion when he tried to install a partition separating men from women in the congregation. Politics dominated Kahane’s life from the late 1950s onward. An ardent anticommunist, he joined the far-right John Birch Society, but wife Libby later claimed that he only infiltrated the group as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 1968, he founded the Jewish Defense League (JDL; see sidebar), pledged to protect New York Jews from overt acts of anti-Semitism. Clashes with neo-Nazis ensued, and the organization grew quickly, with membership exceeding 15,000. By then, the JDL had branched out into terrorism, focusing primarily on hostile Arab targets in the United States and Russian embassies or other symbols of Soviet anti-Semitism. Kahane immigrated to Israel in 1971, declaring his intent to focus on Jewish education, but the lure of politics proved irresistible. Between scores of arrests for public demonstrations, he found time to found the Kach (“This is

KAHANE, MEIR

the Way”) Party, espousing an ultranationalistic platform subsequently dubbed “Kahanism.” In 1980, arrested for the 62nd time, Kahane drew a six-month sentence for plotting armed attacks on Palestinians in retaliation for the deaths of Jewish settlers. A year later, Israel’s Central Elections Committee banned him from public office on grounds that Kach was a racist party, but the Supreme Court overturned that ban, with a suggestion that the Knesset pass a law excluding racist parties from future elections. That law was passed in 1985, but in the meantime, Kach won its first Knesset, occupied by Kahane. Kahane set the tone for his legislative tenure by refusing to take the standard oath of office, insisting that a verse from Psalms be added, stating that biblical law superseded any statutes passed by the Knesset. His various legislative proposals focused on expulsion of Arabs from Israel, revocation of Israeli citizenship for non-Jews, and criminalizing sex or marriage between Jews and Gentiles. A virtual pariah in the Knesset, many of whose members boycotted his speeches, Kahane still rallied public support among conservative workingclass Jews. The new ban on racist parties and candidates barred Kahane from seeking a second term in 1988, and this time the Supreme Court affirmed his exclusion from office.

JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE (JDL) Founded by Meir Kahane in 1968, the JDL’s stated goal is to “protect Jews from anti-Semitism by whatever means necessary.” Spokesmen claim that the group maintains a “strict no-tolerance policy against terrorism and other felonious acts,” and that “unequivocally condemns terrorism,” but the JDL’s history suggests otherwise. FBI files record 18 acts of domestic terrorism committed by Jews between 1980 and 1985—all but three involving JDL members. In 1986, a report from the U.S. Department of Energy stated that “For more than a decade, the Jewish Defense League ( JDL) has been one of the most active terrorist groups in the United States. . . . Since 1968, JDL operations have killed 7 persons and wounded at least 22. Thirty-nine percent of the targets were connected with the Soviet Union; 9 percent were Palestinian; 8 percent were Lebanese; 6 percent, Egyptian; 4 percent, French, Iranian, and Iraqi; 1 percent, Polish and German; and 23 percent were not connected with any states. Sixty-two percent of all JDL actions are directed against property; 30 percent against businesses; 4 percent against academics and academic institutions; and 2 percent against religious targets.” In 2001, the FBI formally labeled the JDL “a right-wing terrorist group.”

251

252

K APODISTRIAS, IOANNIS ANTONIOS

El Sayyid Nosair was finally punished, after a fashion, for Kahane’s murder. In 1993, FBI agents arrested Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and others for participation in an elaborate conspiracy that included bombing New York’s World Trade Centers and an abortive plot to liberate Nosair from prison. The indictment included Kahane’s assassination as a part of that conspiracy, and Nosair was convicted with the others at trial, receiving a sentence of life without parole plus 15 years. In 2002, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee reported that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had paid for some of Nosair’s legal expenses in 1991. Further Reading Breslauer, Daniel. Meir Kahane: Ideologue, Hero, Thinker. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986. Friedman, Robert. The False Prophet: Rabbi Meir Kahane, from FBI Informant to Knesset Member. New York: Lawrence Hill, 1990. Kahane, Meir. The Story of the Jewish Defense League. New York: Institute for Publication of the Writings of Rabbi Meir Kahane, 2000. Rosenthal, Richard. Rookie Cop: Deep Undercover in the Jewish Defense League. Wellfleet, MA: Leapfrog Press, 2000.

KAPODISTRIAS, IOANNIS ANTONIOS (1776–1831) Greek governor Ioannis Kapodistrias woke early on Sunday, October 9, 1831, to attend a church service in Nafplio. Bodyguards and aides counseled against a public appearance, citing hostility over the recent arrest of rebel leader Petrobey Mavromichalis, but Kapodistrias dismissed their concerns. As the governor approached the church of Saint Spyridonas, he was met by his enemy’s brother, Konstantinos Mavromichalis, and nephew Georgios Mavromichalis. Konstantinos drew a pistol and fired at Kapodistrias but missed with his single-shot weapon, then drew a dagger and stabbed the governor in the stomach, while Georgios pulled his own pistol and delivered a fatal head shot. Bodyguards shot and killed Konstantinos at the scene, whereupon a furious mob seized his body and tossed it from a cliff into the Argolic Gulf. Gregorios fled to the French embassy, then surrendered days later to face trial for treason. A court-martial condemned him, and he was shot by a military firing squad. Ioannis Kapodistrias was born on February 11, 1776, to a noble family on the Ionian island of Corfu, ruled from Venice at the time. He studied law, philosophy, and medicine in Italy, establishing a medical practice on Corfu at age 21. Two years later, when Russian and Turkish forces occupied Corfu in 1799, the invaders chose Kapodistrias as director of their military hospital. In 1802, he founded Corfu’s National Medical Association, offering medical care to residents throughout the island.

KAPODISTRIAS, IOANNIS ANTONIOS

Although of royal descent, Kapodistrias was a dedicated liberal and democrat. He entered politics at age 25, as chief minister of state for the Septinsular Republic, established under nominal Ottoman sovereignty in the Ionian Islands, with native nobles in charge. A “Byzantine” Constitution, imposed by the sultan at Constantinople in 1800, loosely governed the seven-island republic until 1807, when French forces regrouped and recaptured the Ionian Islands, dissolving Ottoman rule. Two years later, Kapodistrias volunteered for Russia’s diplomatic service under Czar Alexander I, and was dispatched to Switzerland Russia’s unofficial ambassador in November 1813. There, he helped begin the process of restoring Switzerland’s federal regime, dismantled by Napoleon Bonaparte a decade earlier, and secured for himself a six-year term as Russia’s foreign minister, beginning in 1816. Kapodistrias retired from Russian service in 1822, settling in Geneva for the next five years, though he continued to support the cause of Greek independence from Ottoman rule. That long struggle climaxed with victory in April 1826, and the following year, a new Greek National Assembly chose Kapodistrias in absentia as the first governor of independent Greece. In January 1828, Kapodistrias arrived on the Greek mainland for the first time in his life, proceeding to the capital at Nafplio. During his three years and nine months in office, Kapodistrias built rural schools and the first modern Greek university, reorganized military forces scattered during conflict with the Turks, and established the nation’s first quarantine system to end epidemics of cholera, dysentery, and typhoid fever. He introduced potato cultivation, to enhance Greek agriculture, and created foundations to employ young women, while introducing modern currency in the form of the Greek phoenix. Such sweeping changes inevitably sparked opposition in some quarters, including certain wealthy merchant families and rebellious inhabitants of the Mani Peninsula, with its capital at Areopoli, where Petrobey Mavromichalis ruled in the style of a feudal warlord. The imprisonment of Petrobey, in 1831, provoked assassination in return. Kapodistrias was briefly succeeded by his younger brother, Augustinos, but his six-month term as governor proved chaotic. He left office in March 1832, with three successive governing councils attempting to salvage the First Hellenic Republic between April 1832 and February 1833. They accomplished nothing, beyond demonstrating the futility of government by committee, and thereafter ceded power to King Otto, establishing a 114-year monarchy. Further Reading Clogg, Richard. A Concise History of Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Sergeant, Lewis. Greece in the Nineteenth Century—A Record of Hellenic Emancipation and Progress: 1821–1897. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1897.

253

254

K A P U U O, C L E M E N S

KAPUUO, CLEMENS (1923–1978) On March 27, 1978, two unidentified gunman killed Clemens Kapuuo—a shopkeeper, school teacher, paramount chief of the Herero people, and leader of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA)—in Katutura, a segregated black township of Windhoek, capital of South African administered Namibia. The killers struck as Kapuuo stood talking with friends, then escaped in the confusion following his murder. Fellow members of the DTA, engaged in a campaign for Namibian independence, blamed South African officials for Kapuuo’s assassination. White police, in turn, blamed members of SWAPO—the South West Africa People’s Organization—whom they claimed were put off by Kapuuo’s political moderation. The crime remains officially unsolved today. Clemens Kapuuo was born in the Okahandja district on March 16, 1923, four years after South Africa assumed control of the former German SouthWest Africa as a League of Nations mandate. He graduated from St. Barnabas Anglican Church School in Windhoek, then qualified as a teacher with studies at Viljoensdrif, in the Orange Free State, and at the Stofberg Memorial School (founded in 1907 to train black teachers, presently Groenpunt Correctional Centre for offenders aged 18 to 21). During 1944 and 1945 he taught at elementary schools in Waterberg and Karibib, then returned to St. Barnabas as an English instructor in 1946. From 1950 through 1953, Kapuuo served as president of the South West Africa Teachers Association. Education led Kapuuo into tribal politics as a founding member of the South West Africa National Union (SWANU), in 1958. Now Namibia’s oldest political party, the SWANU drew most of its members from Kapuuo’s own Herero tribe, whereas SWAPO (founded two years later) was dominated by Ovambo tribesmen. Kapuuo retired from teaching in 1960, to serve as deputy and designated heir to aging Herero chief Hosea Kutako. To support himself, Kapuuo ran a shop in Windhoek’s Old Location (now Hochland Park), and led opposition to South Africa’s forced removal of blacks to Katutura—translated from Otjiherero as “The place where we do not want to live”—in 1961. Three years later, the Herero Chiefs Council tried to divorce itself from politics, withdrawing from SWANU and directing Herero activists into a new National Unity Democratic Organization (NUDO), led by Mburumba Kerina. Himself a founding member of both SWANU and SWAPO, Kerina soon quarreled with the council over policy matters and with Kapuuo. In 1966, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) dismissed a complaint filed by Ethiopia and Liberia, challenging South African rule of Namibia, but the panel reversed itself five years later, issuing a toothless “advisory opinion” declaring South Africa’s continued administration of the territory to be illegal. South Africa ignored that judgment, while SWAPO’s military arm—the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia—conducted a guerrilla war against white rule from 1966 onward.

KARUME, SHEIKH ABEID AMANI

Following the ICJ’s unenforceable ruling of 1971, Kapuuo led NUDO into a new National Convention, joining SWANU, SWAPO, and other groups in a united front against South African rule of Namibia. Two years later, the United Nations undercut Kapuuo by declaring SWAPO the sole legitimate representative of native Namibians. That decision shattered the National Convention in 1974, and Kapuuo and NUDO joined in the Turnhalle Constitutional Conference of 1975–1977, laying the groundwork for eventual Namibian self-government. South African authorities used Kapuuo’s assassination as an excuse to purge SWAPO. On May 4, 1978, white troops launched “Operation Reindeer,” a sixday invasion of neighboring Angola that killed more than 1,200 SWAPO members in base camps at Chetequera and Dombondola. South African spokesmen justified the attacks with a list of criminal incidents blamed on SWAPO, including the murder of Clemens Kapuuo. Many Hereros still reject that theory. In January 2002, Herero paramount chief Kuaima Riruako accused South Africa’s former apartheid regime of planning and executing Kapuuo’s assassination. According to him, “Kapuuo was killed by colonial imperial capitalists especially the South African regime and their cohorts. I am saying this because even today the inquest on his death is not clear. Let us be honest. The very same people who are refusing to find out who killed Kapuuo, gave him a state funeral.” Further Reading Leys, Colin, and Susan Brown, Histories of Namibia: Living through the Liberation Struggle. London: Merlin Press, 2004. Wallace, Marion. A History of Namibia: From the Beginning to 1990. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2011.

KARUME, SHEIKH ABEID AMANI (1905–1972) On April 7, 1972, members of Zanzibar’s Umma Party—formed nine years earlier by disaffected Arab socialists opposed to the ruling Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP)—set off to arrest President Abeid Karume in Zanzibar Town. Their plan was to seize Karume, take him to Radio Zanzibar, and force him to proclaim their chosen candidate at the island’s next president. The ill-conceived plan was doomed, however, by inclusion of a party member named Humudi in the kidnap party, whose father had been killed by state authorities. At sight of President Karume playing bao (a board game) with some friends at party headquarters, Humudi shot Karume nine times at close range, killing him instantly. Fifty-seven suspects were charged with treason following Karume’s murder, 34 of whom were convicted. Sheikh Abeid Karume was reportedly born at Mwera, Zanzibar, on August 4, 1905, though some natives of the island refused to believe it, insisting that he

255

256

K ARUME, SHEIKH ABEID AMANI

was a foreigner, possibly born in Uganda. That confusion may have arisen from his widespread travels as a sailor, early in his life, achieving knowledge of the world by experience, in lieu of formal education. Upon returning to his homeland, he entered politics as a member of the ASP, allied (and later merged) with the Tanganyika African National Union. Britain controlled Zanzibar at that time, but granted independence to the island in December 1963. In the country’s first election, the ASP won a slim majority of the popular vote, but the Arab-dominated Zanzibar Nationalist Party closed ranks with the mostly African Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party to claim victory under Sultan Jamshid bin Abdullah. On January 12, 1964, with Karume traveling on the African mainland, members of the Umma Party and ASP rebelled in Zanzibar, led by ASP member John Okello. They deposed the sultan and declared Zanzibar a republic, with a Revolutionary Council in charge. To Okello’s surprise, the council chose Abeid Karume as president, while naming Umma Party leader Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu as prime minister (later vice president). Okello was shuffled aside and left for the Congo, where he was jailed several times, then vanished forever after being seen with Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, in 1971. Hassan Nassor Moyo, a member of Karume’s cabinet, described the president as a man who loathed discrimination, working tirelessly to unite the islands 28 separate ethnic groups. Karume chose an Arab, Salum Rashid, as the Revolutionary Council’s First Secretary, thus extending an olive branch to the deposed regime, but subsequent events suggest that he did not go far enough to please Abdulrahman Babu or the Umma Party. Sixteen attempts to overthrow the government were logged between 1964 and Karume’s eventual death, eight years later. Following Karume’s murder, 57 defendants were charged with treason, held for trial in a curious proceeding where Attorney General Wolfgang Dourado served as both prosecutor and defender of the accused. Chief Justice Ali Haji Pandu, presiding at the trial, also displayed an apparent conflict of interest, admitting that 15 of the defendants were his personal friends and former classmates. The trial produced 35 convictions, and 23 defendants were acquitted of all charges. Babu, named as the plot’s mastermind, was sentenced to death with the other 34 convicted prisoners, but all of the death sentences were later commuted to various prison terms. Babu and 12 others served the longest sentences, released in 1978 under an amnesty declared by President Julius Nyerere. Karume’s death proved disastrous for the Umma Party that hoped to replace him. With most of its leaders in prison, the party soon dissolved, leaving the ASP stronger than ever. Karume’s son, Amani Abeid Karume, served as principal secretary in the ministry of finance (1971–1974), principal secretary in the ministry of planning (1974–1978), and principal secretary in the ministry of communications and transport (1978–1980), and finally spent a decade as president, from November 2000 to November 2010.

K E N N E D Y, J O H N F I T Z G E R A L D

Further Reading Burgess, G. Thomas. Race, Revolution, and the Struggle for Human Rights in Zanzibar. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009. Petterson, Donald. Revolution in Zanzibar: An American’s Cold War Tale. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004.

KENNEDY, JOHN FITZGERALD (1917–1963) At 12:30 P.M. on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy ( JFK) was fatally wounded by rifle fire while riding in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Governor John Connally, riding in the same open limousine, suffered multiple wounds from one bullet but lived to recover. At 1:15 P.M., a gunman shot and killed Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit, several miles from Dealey Plaza. Thirty-five minutes later, officers arrested a suspect in that shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald, subsequently charging him with President Kennedy’s murder at 11:26 P.M. Oswald denied all charges and declared that he was being set up as “a patsy.” At 11:21 A.M. on November 24, during Oswald’s televised transfer to the county jail, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald in the basement of Dallas police headquarters, in full view of numerous detectives and television cameras. President Lyndon Johnson appointed a special commission to investigate the Kennedy assassination on November 29, 1963. Its 888-page report, published on September 27, 1964, with 26 volumes of supporting evidence, declared that both Oswald and Ruby acted alone, compelled by psychological motives, and that they had no connection to each other. John Kennedy—America’s 35th president and the fourth to die by violence—was the eldest living son of a wealthy and powerful Massachusetts family, wholly dominated by patriarch Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr. Born in Brookline on May 29, 1917, he graduated from President John F. Kennedy was shot by Lee HarHarvard University and served vey Oswald while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, with distinction in the U.S. Texas, in 1963. (John F. Kennedy Library)

257

258

K E N N E D Y, J O H N F I T Z G E R A L D

Navy during World War II, in the Pacific theater. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1946, he served six years there, and seven in the Senate, before emerging from a close and highly controversial White House race in 1960, as the country’s youngest elected president. He also generated more public controversy than any president since Franklin Roosevelt, based in equal parts on his religion (Roman Catholic), his civil rights initiatives for African Americans, a failed invasion of Cuba in April 1961, a subsequent standoff with Russia over missiles planted on that island, and his aggressive war against organized crime. By 1963, as he began campaigning for a second term, there was no shortage of potential enemies who wished him dead. Murder of a U.S. president was still a state offense, equivalent to any other murder, in November 1963. Dallas police emerged as seeming bunglers for their handling of the case, from misidentification of the alleged murder rifle— detectives first described it as a 7.25-mm German Mauser; it was, in fact, a 6.5-mm Italian Mannlicher-Carcano—through sensational press conferences, to having their prime suspect gunned down “live” on national TV. Some other agency would have to build a case, although if Oswald was a lone assassin, there would be no trial. There were problems, as well, with local handling of the president’s body and analysis of his wounds. Physicians at Parkland hospital recorded three wounds: one in front of Kennedy’s throat, described as an entrance wound; another in his back, five to six inches below the neck, with no projectile found and no exit point; and a massive, obviously fatal wound at the right rear of Kennedy’s skull. Texas law required that autopsies of murder victims be performed within the state, unless the crime occurred on federal property, yet Dallas County’s district attorney and medical examiner agreed to removal of the corpse, at the demand of JFK’s widow and President Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy’s autopsy was performed at Maryland’s Bethesda Naval Hospital (now Walter Reed National Military Medical Center), by Dr. George Burkley, then a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps. He concluded that two shots struck Kennedy, both from the rear, with neither projectile recovered. Meanwhile, a single nearly pristine rifle bullet had been found at Parkland Hospital, in Dallas, lying on a stretcher in the area where JFK and Governor Connally were delivered for emergency treatment. No one could determine which stretcher, but it was initially assumed that the slug—today known as Warren Commission Exhibit (CE) 399—must have come from Kennedy’s body, falling out of his shallow back wound, perhaps during cardiac massage. That view changed radically in months to come, as we shall see. J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seemed to jump the gun with its pronouncement of a single shooter in the Kennedy assassination. At 3:01 P.M. on November 22, eight hours and 25 minutes before Lee Oswald was accused of killing Kennedy, Hoover wrote a memo to his assistant directors,

K E N N E D Y, J O H N F I T Z G E R A L D

saying, “I called the attorney general at his home and told him I thought we had the man who killed the president down in Dallas, at the present time.” On November 24, shortly after Oswald’s death, another Hoover memo stated: “The thing I am most concerned about, and so is Mr. [Deputy Attorney General Nicholas] Katzenbach, is having something issued so that we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.” On November 26, Hoover wrote to Assistant FBI Director Alan Belmont, “Just how long do you estimate [completion of a final report] will take? It seems to me we have all the basic facts now.” President Johnson’s “blue-ribbon” investigative commission, chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren, included Allen Dulles, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); John McCloy, former president of the World Bank; Kentucky senator John Cooper; Georgia senator Richard Russell Jr.; House Majority Leader Hale Boggs; and House Minority Leader Gerald Ford. Evidence appended to the commission’s final report included testimony or depositions of 552 witnesses, plus more than 3,100 exhibits. Even so, critics found much challenge in the panel’s two-lone-gunmen verdict, complaining that testimony from “inconvenient” witnesses was censored or ignored, that photographic evidence was altered prior to publication, and that unpublished portions of those records were initially sealed for 75 years (to 2039) by order of President Johnson (later changed to 2017 under the JFK Records Act of 1992). Examples of discrepancies in the commission’s findings include a false denial of Jack Ruby’s longstanding ties to organized crime in Chicago, Dallas, and elsewhere; omission of testimony from 51 witnesses who reported shots fired at JFK’s motorcade from a “grassy knoll” in front of the president’s car, rather than the book warehouse behind the limousine, where Oswald was employed; preoccupation with irrelevant trivia, filling pages with biographical data on Oswald, Ruby, and their parents, wholly unrelated to JFK’s murder; a complete failure to investigate Kennedy’s outspoken enemies in the Mafia, right-wing extremist circles, and the Cuban exile committee; publication of selected frames from a home movie of the shooting, filmed by witness Abraham Zapruder, with the frames rearranged to show Kennedy’s head snapping forward, rather than backward, on impact from the fatal head shot; and a “magic-bullet” theory advanced to explain how one virtually undamaged projectile could produce most of the wounds suffered by JFK and Governor Connally. Commission member Allen Dulles, whose own CIA was suspected by some of plotting the president’s death, encouraged suspicion of a cover-up in a comment concerning the Warren Commission’s voluminous records, quoted in declassified minutes of a closed hearing. “Nobody reads,” he said. “Don’t believe people read in this country. There will be a few professors that will read the record. The public will read very little.” As it happens, he was wrong. From 1965 until the present day, a nonstop stream of books and articles dissecting Kennedy’s assassination have dissected

259

260

K E N N E D Y, J O H N F I T Z G E R A L D

the commission’s findings, evidence, and items it ignored, hypothesizing various conspiracies. A smaller, but no less ardent body of literature defends the commission’s work and final judgment. Confusion over the original forensic evidence—including reports of an entry wound in Kennedy’s throat, the fact that FBI marksmen could not hit any target with Oswald’s cheap Italian rifle until they braced its telescopic sight with special shims, and the disappearance of JFK’s preserved brain from the National Archives—only increased the clamor for full disclosure. The Warren Commission’s most controversial finding was its claim that a single shot inflicted one of Kennedy’s wounds and all of those suffered by Governor Connally, a claim quickly derided by critics as the “magic-bullet theory.” Ignoring medical reports of a shallow back wound with no exit path, the panel decided that the Dallas stretcher bullet, CE 399, struck Kennedy in the back of his neck and passed out the front (where an entry wound was reported at Parkland Hospital), then angled downward to penetrate Connally’s back, shatter a rib and exit from his torso, smash bones in his wrist, then bury itself in his thigh, afterward dropping onto the hospital stretcher. Aside from its proposed erratic flight pattern, CE 399 itself challenged the single-bullet theory. It was found to weigh 158.6 grains (10.28 grams), whereas new, unfired 6.5-mm bullets leave the factory assembly line weighing 159.8 to 161.5 grains, with an average weight of 160.844 grains. Fragments found in Connally’s wrist alone weighed 2 grains. Additionally, CE 399 was barely marked by firing, undeformed by smashing ribs and other bones, bearing no characteristic markings of passage through fabric, human flesh, or blood. Still, the single-bullet theory was essential to discrediting reports of a second gunman, firing from in front of JFK’s motorcade. In February 1968, at request of the Attorney General Ramsey Clark, four physicians met in Washington, D.C., to review the original JFK autopsy records, photos, and X-rays, as well as clothing, films, motion pictures, and bullet fragments. Their confirmation of the Warren Commission’s findings— that Kennedy was struck by only two shots, both fired from behind him— predictably failed to mollify critics of the commission’s 1964 report. Indeed, the panel’s finding of “metallic fragments along the higher bullet trail” through JFK’s neck, seemed to further weaken the Warren Commission’s “magic-bullet” scenario. Original commission member Gerald Ford, now president, tried once more to still that criticism in 1975, with creation of the president’s commission on CIA activities within the United States. Launched in response to CIA assassinations abroad, and “mind-control” experiments at home, the new panel—chaired by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller—sought to disprove claims that JFK had been murdered by CIA agents or rogue agency associates. Once again, the 1963 autopsy was reviewed, in addition to films of the assassination taken by witnesses

K E N N E D Y, J O H N F I T Z G E R A L D

at Dealey Plaza. And once again, the panel confirmed Warren Commission findings, reporting that there was “no evidence to support the claim that President Kennedy was struck by a bullet fired from either the grassy knoll or any other position to his front, right front or right side. . . . No witness who urged the view that the Zapruder film and other motion picture films proved that President Kennedy was struck by a bullet fired from his right front was shown to possess any professional or other special qualifications on the subject.” Again, predictably, critics were unconvinced. A year later, spurred by unending controversy, Congress created the House Select Committee on Assassinations, to reopen investigation of Kennedy’s death and the slaying of Dr. Martin Luther King. Three years later, based chiefly on acoustical evidence, the panel found “a high probability that at least two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy,” but that the “grassy knoll” shooter had missed, leaving Oswald in effect the lone assassin. The Committee failed to identify the second gunman or any potential conspirators, reporting that the Mafia and Cuban exile organizations were not involved “as groups,” but that “the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved” in the conspiracy. That verdict, in turn, produced mocking outcries from supporters of the Warren Commission, and a new round of conspiracy literature. Leading suspects in potential JFK assassination plots include: • The CIA, or some rogue element within it. Threatened with dismantling by JFK after the Bay of Pigs fiasco in April 1961, pledged to continuance of covert wars in Cuba, Central America, and Southeast Asia, the agency had its own man on the Warren Commission, ideally placed to suppress evidence. Several authors spin persuasive circumstantial webs linking Oswald to the CIA, and Jack Ruby was a known participant in agencysponsored offensives against Fidel Castro. • The FBI, a long-shot contender for assassination per se, but clearly guilty of suppressing evidence concerning its contacts with Oswald and Ruby prior to November 1963. Agent James Hosty in Dallas admittedly destroyed notes of his pre-assassination interviews with Oswald, as well as a note delivered to his office by Oswald shortly before JFK’s murder. J. Edgar Hoover personally despised both Kennedy brothers for their personal behavior, their liberal politics, and their insistence that the FBI belatedly engage in prosecution of high-ranking mobsters (some of whom were the director’s personal friends). It was also widely rumored that JFK would celebrate his reelection by replacing Hoover with a younger successor, more amenable to the administration’s goals. • Right-wing extremists, including violent segregationists such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), White Citizens Council, and similar groups, bankrolled by

261

262

K E N N E D Y, J O H N F I T Z G E R A L D

ultraconservative oilmen who feared the repeal of lucrative tax loopholes threatened by Kennedy if he won a second term. Known associates of Lee Harvey Oswald included members of the paramilitary Minutemen and the neo-Nazi National States Rights Party (NSRP), both linked to covert CIA training of Cuban exile groups attempting to depose Fidel Castro. Despite his outspoken leftist sympathies, Oswald curiously shared an office with those right-wing activists in New Orleans. NSRP member Joseph Milteer predicted the events of JFK’s assassination to a colleague two weeks in advance, saying that the president would be shot during a motorcade, with a “nut” blamed for the crime. Secret Service agents took the claim seriously enough to cancel Kennedy’s Miami motorcade on November 19—then sent him on to Dallas, where the same scenario played out. • Anti-Castro Cuban exiles, infuriated by the bungled Bay of Pigs invasion, armed and financed by the CIA, acting in league with mobsters who mourned the loss of their Havana casinos after Castro’s rise to power. Exile groups such as Alpha 66 and Omega 7 have been linked to countless acts of terrorism, ranging from individual murders to bombings of commercial airliners in flight. In April 1963, a flier circulated among Cuban exiles in Miami read, in part: “Only through one development will you Cuban patriots ever live again in your homeland as freemen . . . if an inspired Act of God should place in the White House within weeks a Texan known to be a friend of all Latin Americans.” Conspiracy theorists cite that pamphlet as a reference to Texas native Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded JFK. • Fidel Castro, understandably concerned and angered by the hundreds of reported attempts to assassinate him, sponsored by the CIA, the Mafia, and Cuban exile groups. In this scenario—denied by Castro and the Cuban government, flatly dismissed by House investigators in 1979—Fidel retaliated with a “hit” on JFK. Alleged supporting evidence includes Lee Oswald’s outspoken (but contradictory) support for Castro, including fabrication of his own one-man Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans. • Organized crime, a nexus for several conspiracy theories, supported by claims that two Mafia leaders confessed to the crime late in life. Aside from losing its Havana gambling revenues in 1959, the Mob had worked hard to elect JFK in 1960, at the behest of his former-bootlegger father, then found its leaders betrayed when the president-elect named brother RFK to serve as attorney general (at their father’s insistence). “Bobby” launched wholesale prosecution of high-ranking gangsters and corrupt labor leaders, including Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa (who threatened the lives of both Kennedys on multiple occasions). The Mafia was also entwined with CIA efforts to kill Fidel Castro, assisted in training of Cuban exiles, and employed KKK members who despised the Kennedy

K E N N E D Y, J O H N F I T Z G E R A L D

regime as “muscle” in Southern states. Prime suspects in the JFK assassination are New Orleans mafioso Carlos Marcello and colleague Santo Trafficante, from Tampa, Florida. Jack Ruby worked for Marcello in Dallas, and had visited Trafficante in Cuba, during 1959. Both mobsters denied involvement in the crime when questioned by the House Select Committee on Assassinations—but both allegedly admitted their key roles in the murder to underworld associates, before their deaths in the 1980s. It remains to be seen whether the final release of Warren Commission files in 2017 will resolve the nagging questions that surround President Kennedy’s death. One thing seems fairly certain: controversies will continue.

INFAMOUS WEAPONS Famous weapons are prized by collectors. Dallas police returned Jack Ruby’s revolver to his family, sparking a 28-year legal contest that climaxed with a court order awarding custody to brother Earl Ruby. He sold it for $220,000, but police in Washington, D.C., seized the gun when its buyer offered to show it to Speaker of the House Thomas Foley. He regained it through litigation in November 1993. He subsequently had Earl Ruby fire 100 shots from the .38 and offered to sell the spent casings for $2,500 apiece. Police also returned Lee Oswald’s rifle to his widow. It was later purchased by the National Archives, along with the revolver that allegedly killed Dallas Patrolman J. D. Tippit on November 22, 1963. The derringer used to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln may be viewed in the basement museum of Ford’s Theatre, in Washington, D.C. The bullet removed from Lincoln’s head during his autopsy was kept by the U.S. War Department until 1940, then passed to the Department of the Interior. Today, it resides at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C. The pistol used to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 was presented to the priest who administered last rites to the archduke and his wife. It vanished when he died in 1926, then reappeared in 2004, whereupon it was donated to the Vienna Museum of Military History. The rifle allegedly used to kill Dr. Martin Luther King in April 1968 remains in storage at the Shelby County Court, in Memphis, Tennessee. Jerry Ray, brother of convicted assassin James Earl Ray, brought multiple lawsuits to reclaim the weapon, but all were dismissed on grounds that the rifle was voluntarily “abandoned” near the murder scene.

263

264

K E N N E D Y, R O B E R T F R A N C I S

Further Reading Adams, Don. From an Office Building with a High-Powered Rifle: One FBI Agent’s View of the JFK Assassination. Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2012. Anson, Robert. “They’ve Killed the President!”: The Search for the Murderers of John F. Kennedy. New York: Bantam Books, 1976. Benson, Michael. Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination: An A to Z Encyclopedia. New York: Citadel Press, 2003. JFK Assassination Records. National Archives. http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk. Meagher, Sylvia. Accessories after the Fact. New York: Vintage Books, 1992. Posner, Gerald. Case Closed. New York: Random House, 1993. Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives. National Archives. http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report. Waldron, Lamar. Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint Press, 2008.

KENNEDY, ROBERT FRANCIS (1925–1968) At 12:10 A.M. on June 5, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) claimed victory over two major rivals in California’s Democratic presidential primary. He still trailed Vice President Hubert Humphrey by 168 delegate votes, but hoped to make up the difference and win nomination at the party’s convention in Chicago, two months later. Kennedy addressed a crowd of cheering supporters at the Ambassador Hotel, in Los Angeles, then prepared to exit with his entourage through the hotel’s kitchen. There, he was accosted by gunman Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, who emptied his .22-caliber pistol before he was subdued and disarmed. Three bullets struck Kennedy, and other bullets wounded five bystanders. All except the senator would live: despite extensive surgery, Kennedy died 26 hours later, at Good Samaritan Hospital. Sirhan was convicted of murder in April 1969 and received a death sentence, commuted to life imprisonment three years later, when California’s Supreme Court ruled capital punishment “cruel and unusual” under the state’s constitution. Robert “Bobby” Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on November 20, 1925, a younger brother of future president John Fitzgerald Kennedy ( JFK). World War II interrupted his studies at Harvard, but he graduated in 1948 and earned his law degree from the University of Virginia in 1951. Following the family tradition of public service, he worked as an attorney for the Justice Department’s Internal Security Section in 1951–1952, then served as a federal prosecutor in New York, before joining Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Pursuit of communists took a backseat to management of his brother’s political campaigns in the mid-1950s, but Kennedy rejoined the committee to investigate labor racketeers under new chairman John McClellan, developing an unexpected zeal for prosecuting mobsters. In 1961, at their domineering father’s insistence, JFK appointed

K E N N E D Y, R O B E R T F R A N C I S

Bobby as U.S. attorney general, with a mandate to hunt mob bosses nationwide. Following brother John’s assassination, longtime rival Lyndon Johnson demoted Bobby, then fired him from the Justice Department, whereupon RFK pursued and won a U.S. Senate seat from New York state in November 1964. By March 1968, when Johnson declined to seek a second term, Bobby was a leading voice against the war in Vietnam, and a front-runner for the looming presidential race. The second Kennedy assassination within five years appeared to be an open-and-shut case. Sirhan had been literally caught red-handed, with the smoking pistol in his fist, surrounded by eyewitnesses and television cameras. Investigators found his diary, filled with wild, semi-coherent rants denouncing Kennedy over the candidate’s remarks supporting Israel—Sirhan was a Jordanian expatriate—and endlessly repeating “RFK Must Die!” His attorneys broached the topic of a guilty plea in February 1969, hoping for life imprisonment, but Sirhan then dismissed the lawyers, telling Judge Herbert Walker, “I will ask to be executed.” At trial, a month later, Sirhan admitted shooting Kennedy “with 20 years of malice aforethought.” Jurors took his word for it, convicting him and recommending death. And yet, there were significant discrepancies in what appeared, at first, to be a flawless case. To start, the pistol seized from Sirhan held eight cartridges, but witnesses reported hearing 13 shots or more. Although that could easily be written off to panic of the moment, there remained the awkward count of bullets logged by FBI agents, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and Associated Press (AP) photographers. Eight bullets struck the shooting’s victims—three for Kennedy alone—but annotated crime scene photographs and notes clearly identify at least five other bullet holes in door frames and ceiling panels. The frames and panels were quickly removed and destroyed, allowing prosecutors to claim that the bullets observed by detectives were “nail heads,” but contemporary notes and statements contradict those claims. One AP photo showed two uniformed patrolmen pointing at a bullet hole, circled by a pencil mark, in the door frame; the officers also told prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi that they saw a bullet in the hole. FBI agent William Bailey saw another bullet in the double door’s central divider. Hotel waiter Martin Patrusky described watching policemen dig a bullet out of that divider, and carpenters who later removed the door frame reported similar finds. Another problem arose from Kennedy’s wounds. Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi reported that all of the shots that struck Kennedy came from behind him, with the fatal head shot behind his right ear fired no farther than one inch away from his skull. Meanwhile, unanimous eyewitness testimony and the TV tapes confirm that Sirhan stood in front of Kennedy, never getting closer than three to four feet from his target. Even if Kennedy turned

265

266

K E N N E D Y, R O B E R T F R A N C I S

from the first shots, as prosecutors suggested, Sirhan’s gun was never close enough to scorch his skin with powder burns at anything approaching skintouch range. A third problem involved the murder weapon itself. On June 11, 1968, LAPD criminalist Dewayne Wolfer test-fired Sirhan’s supposed revolver and reported a ballistic match to the bullets removed from Kennedy’s body. Wolfer recorded the weapon’s serial number as H18602—but in fact, the serial number of Sirhan’s revolver was H53725. Questioned about the strange discrepancy later, Wolfer called it a simple “clerical error.” By then, however, both revolvers had been melted down for scrap metal, so Wolfer’s test results could never be confirmed. In 1973, world-renowned criminologist Dr. Herbert Leon MacDonell examined bullets from the Kennedy crime scene, reporting in a sworn affidavit that the slug from Kennedy’s neck (Exhibit #47) could not have been fired from the same gun as Exhibit #54, removed from kitchen survivor William Weisel. The following year, at a public hearing, Dr. Lowell Bradford, state criminologist for the California Division of Criminal Investigation, agreed with MacDonell’s findings. In 1975, a court-appointed panel of seven ballistics experts convened to review the evidence, and although newspapers ran their decision under headlines reading “RFK Second Gun Theory Ruled Out,” the panel’s report actually said that the question of a second shooter was “more open than before.” Subsequently, researcher Rose Lynn Mangan discovered that Exhibit #47, which should have had the coded designation “TN31” etched in its base, actually bore the etching “DWTN.” From that, she speculated that at least one crime scene bullet had been switched with a slug from some other shooting, accidentally or by design. Another suggestion of evidence suppressed involves reports of a young woman clad in a polka-dot dress, allegedly seen running from the Ambassador’s kitchen area on June 5, saying, “We shot him! We shot him!” Witness Sandra Serrano stopped the woman and asked what she meant, to which the still-unidentified female replied, “We shot Senator Kennedy!” Several other witnesses reported seeing the same person, including an elderly couple who met her in a parking lot behind the hotel and reported her suspicious behavior to LAPD officer Paul Sheraga. He, in turn, issued an all-points bulletin (APB) for the young woman, described as “well-built,” with dirty blond hair and a crooked or “funny” nose, wearing a white dress with blue or black polka-dots. Stranger still, reports later surfaced of the same woman, or her virtual twin, loitering around the Ambassador days before the assassination, with a man who resembled Sirhan. Despite Sheraga’s APB on the mystery woman, investigators quickly abandoned their search for her and devoted unusual energy toward persuading eyewitnesses that she did not exist. Sandy Serrano bore the brunt of what she

K E N N E D Y, R O B E R T F R A N C I S

called aggressive bullying LAPD sergeant Hank Hernandez, memorialized in a 38-minute audio recording that includes the following exchange: Hernandez: “I think you owe it to Senator Kennedy, the late Senator Kennedy, to come forth, to be a woman about this. If he, and you don’t know and I don’t know whether he’s a witness right now in this room watching what we’re doing in here. Don’t shame his death by keeping this thing up. I have compassion for you. I want to know why. I want to know why you did what you did. This is a very serious thing.” Serrano: “I seen those people!” Hernandez: “No, no, no, no, Sandy. Remember what I told you about that: you can’t say you saw something when you didn’t see it.”

Sergeant Hernandez was assigned to “Special Unit Senator,” an LAPD task force formed specifically to investigate Kennedy’s murder. Commanding the team was Lieutenant Manuel Pena, who had retired from the department in November 1967, then returned to head the RFK investigation. Author and exFBI agent William Turner subsequently discovered that Pena had left LAPD seven months before Kennedy’s slaying to attend a “special training unit” at CIA headquarters in Virginia. FBI agent Robert LaJeunesse that Pena, prior to his recent hiatus from LAPD, had also worked in South America with CIA agent and torture instructor Daniel Mitrione. Turner obtained further confirmation from Pena’s brother, a high-school teacher, who “casually mentioned to television newsman Stan Bohrman how proud Manny was of his services for the CIA over the years.” Another sometime CIA employee assigned to Special Unit Senator was Enrique “Hank” Hernandez, placed in charge of polygraphing witnesses. If there was a second gunman in the hotel kitchen, who might it have been? Several witnesses reported that a uniformed security guard stood behind Kennedy during the shooting, and that he drew his pistol from its holster. One witness went further, stating that the guard fired his gun, “striking the senator.” Suspicion ultimately focused on Thane Eugene Cesar, a part-time private guard who was present in the Ambassador’s kitchen that night, photographed at the scene, and whose clip-on necktie lies beside Kennedy’s out-flung hand in a famous photo taken in the shooting’s aftermath. Cesar freely admitted drawing his gun in the kitchen, but insisted that it was a Rohm .38-caliber revolver, and that he never pulled the trigger. Under questioning by LAPD, Cesar admitted owning a .22-caliber revolver, and showed it to Sergeant P. E. O’Steen on June 24, 1968. In a later interview, however, Cesar claimed he sold the .22 before Kennedy’s murder. William Turner traced the gun’s buyer in 1972 and retrieved the bill of sale—bearing Cesar’s signature and the date September 6, 1968. The revolver itself was found decades later, identified by its serial number

267

268

K E N N E D Y, R O B E R T F R A N C I S

(Y13332), but was never test fired for comparison with the crime-scene bullets. Cesar’s odd, seemingly pointless lie fueled conspiracy theories, although journalist Dan Moldea—an outspoken proponent of a Mafia conspiracy behind the JFK assassination—claimed in 1995 that Cesar took a polygraph test years after the fact and “passed with flying colors.” (Those tests are inadmissible in most U.S. courts, based on uncertain reliability.) Controversy over details of the second Kennedy assassination continues to the present day. In 2004, an audio recording of gunfire from the hotel kitchen, taped by Polish freelance journalist Stanislaw Pruszynski, surfaced and was analyzed by a team under audio technician Philip Van Praag, who reported sounds of 13 shots fired in the space of five seconds. Although skeptics dismissed those findings, concurring views were logged by forensic audio specialists Wes Dooley and Paul Pegas of Audio Engineering Associates in Pasadena, California, forensic audio and ballistics expert Eddy B. Brixen in Copenhagen, Denmark, and audio specialist Phil Spencer Whitehead of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2008, assassination eyewitness John Pilger reiterated his longstanding belief in a second kitchen gunman. Another witness to the slaying, Nina Rhodes-Hughes, told CNN in April 2012 that FBI agents had “twisted” her original statement, reporting the sound of eight shots. “I never said eight shots. I never, never said it,” Rhodes-Hughes insisted. “There were more than eight shots. There were at least 12, maybe 14. And I know there were because I heard the rhythm in my head.” Potential motives for a plot behind the RFK assassination mirror those suggested in his brother’s case, with the added incentive of forestalling any reinvestigation of the Dallas murder. Intimates of RFK contend that he had promised, if elected, to use his authority as president pursuing answers to the nagging questions still unanswered from November 1963. Whoever set the stage in Dallas, it is argued, had the most to fear from another Kennedy presidency. So, too, would major mobsters, still recovering from persecution (as they saw it) suffered in the years when Bobby Kennedy was the attorney general. Aside from CIA involvement in the Los Angeles murder investigation, BBC reporter Shane O’Sullivan produced a near-confession of sorts in November 2006. On the network’s Newsnight program, he identified three men photographed at the Ambassador Hotel on June 5, 1968, as agents of the CIA’s “JMWAVE” operation in Miami, Florida, headquarters of covert action against Cuban leader Fidel Castro. O’Sullivan identified them as Chief of Operations David Morales, Chief of Maritime Operations Gordon Campbell, and Chief of Psychological Warfare Operations George Joannides. The program also aired an interview with Robert Walton, attorney for the late David Morales, who quoted his client as saying, “I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch [JFK] and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard.” Some students of the RFK assassination suggest that Sirhan may have been used by the CIA as a brainwashed or hypnotized “Manchurian candidate”

K H O Y S K I I S G E N D E R O G L U , FATA L I K H A N

gunman. As evidence, they cite Sirhan’s consistent claims that he has no memory of the assassination or its immediate aftermath, bolstered with odd writings from his diary that include disjointed phrases like “pay to the order of,” interspersed with ravings that “Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated before 5 June 68” and “my determination to eliminate RFK is becoming more the [sic] more of an unshakable obsession.” A psychologist and hypnotist, Dr. Eduard Simson-Kallas, spent 35 hours studying Sirhan in prison, during 1969, and came away convinced that the convict’s amnesia was legitimate. Evidence also suggests at least a coincidental link between Sirhan and elements of organized crime. Prior to Kennedy’s murder, Sirhan worked for a time at a race track owned by a mob associate, and one of his defense attorneys at trial, the late Grant B. Cooper, also represented mafioso John Rosselli in a 1968 card-cheating scandal at the Los Angeles Friar’s Club. In that case, Cooper was found in possession of stolen grand jury reports and fined $1,000. After his conviction and death sentence, Sirhan complained that Cooper was “crooked; he had Mafia and CIA connections.” More specifically, Sirhan alleged, Cooper “was picked to make sure I was convicted and sent to my death, and Cooper complied because they were planning to kill him.” Kennedy’s death in 1968, for all intents and purposes, ensured victory for presidential hopeful Richard Nixon—bankrolled, as we know today, by illegal campaign donations from the Teamsters Union, organized crime, and reclusive billionaire casino magnate Howard Hughes. All that followed after, from escalation in Southeast Asia to the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s near-impeachment, may arguably be seen as results of the kitchen ambush in Los Angeles. Further Reading Kaiser, Robert. “R.F.K. Must Die!”: Chasing the Mystery of the Robert Kennedy Assassination. New York: Overlook Press, 2008. Melanson, Philip. The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination: New Revelations on the Conspiracy and Cover-Up, 1968–1991. New York: S.P.I. Books, 1994. Moldea, Dan. The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy: An Investigation of Motive, Means, and Opportunity. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995. O’Sullivan, Shane. Who Killed Bobby?: The Unsolved Murder of Robert F. Kennedy. New York: Union Square Press, 2008. Turner, William, and John Christian. The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: The Conspiracy and Coverup. New York: Basic Books, 2006.

KHOYSKI ISGENDER OGLU, FATALI KHAN (1875–1920) In 1920, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) launched “Operation Nemesis,” named after the Greek goddess of retribution, as a campaign to eliminate Turkish officials deemed responsible for the Armenian Genocide begun in 1918, which would claim an estimated 1.8 million lives by 1923. The first

269

270

K H OYS K I I S G E N D E R O G L U, FATA L I K H A N

target was Fatali Khan Khoyski, then foreign affairs minister of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and a key organizer of Armenian massacres at Baku that claimed at least 10,000 lives (some accounts claim 30,000) in September 1918. ARF leaders tried Khoyski for mass murder in absentia, convicted him, and sentenced him to death. On June 19, 1920, hand-picked gunman Aram Yerganian shot and killed Khoyski on a street in Tiflis (now Tbilisi), then surrendered to police for trial and execution. As ARF leader Shahan Natalie explained his chosen tactic: “You blow up the skull of the Number One nation-murderer and you don’t try to flee. You stand there, your foot on the corpse and surrender to the police, who will come and handcuff you.” Fatali Khan Khoyski was born in Shaki, Azerbaijan, on December 7, 1875, the son of a colonel in the Russian army, a descendant of the Donboli tribe that ruled Khoy in the 18th century. His great-grandfather, Jafargulu Khan, allied himself with Russia in the Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813, ending the conflict as a lieutenant colonel and head of the Shaki Khanate, installed by Tsar Alexander I. Khoyski studied law at Moscow University, graduating at age 26, serving as a court attorney and prosecutor in various jurisdictions. In 1906, he was elected to the Second Duma of the Russian Empire from Elisabethpol, using his office to oppose Russian colonization of Azerbaijan. Russia’s February Revolution of 1917 upset the balance of empire. A month later, Khoyski joined the newly formed Temporary Executive Committee of Muslim National Councils, and argued for Azerbaijanian independence at the first Müsavat (“Equality”) Party convention in October. In December 1917, he was elected to a new Transcaucasian Commissariat, and with creation of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic in February 1918, Khoyski became its minister of justice. That republic was short-lived, dissolving at the end of May 1918, whereupon the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was established as the world’s first Muslim republic, with Khoyski serving as prime minister. He held that post until April 14, 1919, simultaneously serving as minister of internal affairs (May 28–June 18, 1918), minister of defense (November 18– December 25, 1918), and minister of foreign affairs (December 26, 1918– March 14, 1919). The Baku massacre, for which he was condemned and subsequently killed, was carried out on Khoyski’s orders, in retaliation for a massacre of Azerbaijanis and other Muslims, perpetrated at Baku by Bolshevik troops between March 30 and April 2, 1918. Estimates of the civilian death toll in that slaughter range from 12,000 to 30,000. Following Khoyski’s assassination, Operation Nemesis went on to claim prominent victims in Berlin, Constantinople (now Istanbul), Rome, and Russia. Soviet occupation doomed the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1920, transforming it into the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic until 1991, with the collapse of Russian communism.

KING, MARTIN LUTHER, JR.

Further Reading Derogy, Jacques. Resistance & Revenge. Edison, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990. Isgenderli, Anar. Realities of Azerbaijan: 1917–1920. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2011.

KING, MARTIN LUTHER, JR. (1929–1968) At 6:01 P.M. on April 4, 1968, a sniper shot ’ premier U.S. civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. A single .30-06 rifle bullet struck King in the face, inflicting massive injuries that claimed his life before he reached the nearest hospital. His presumed killer dropped a rifle and various personal items outside a nearby rooming house, from which authorities retrieved latent fingerprints, finally identified on April 19 as belonging to an escaped convict from Missouri, James Earl Ray. A federal fugitive warrant charged Ray and unnamed others with conspiracy to murder King. British police arrested Ray at London’s Heathrow Airport, on June 8, as he attempted to purchase a ticket to Belgium. Extradited to Memphis on July 19, Ray pled guilty to King’s murder on March 10, 1969, and received a 99-year sentence. Days later, he recanted that plea, repeating tales of conspiracy that he had detailed since the time of his arrest. All appeals were denied, and Ray died in prison, from liver and kidney disease, on April 23, 1998—the 31st anniversary of his escape from a Missouri prison. Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929, son of a prominent African American minister, and followed in his father’s footsteps. He enrolled at Georgia’s Morehouse College in 1944, without formally graduating from high school, and received his BA in sociology four years later. From there, he proceeded to Pennsylvania’s Crozer Theological Seminary, earning a bachelor of divinity degree in 1951, going on to earn his PhD from Boston University, in June 1955. Meanwhile, he had received his first church assignment, in Montgomery, Alabama, during 1954, the same year when the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling against segregated schools launched the modern civil rights movement. In December 1955, King emerged as a leader of the Montgomery bus boycott against segregated seating—and suffered the first serious threats against his life when members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) bombed his home, on January 30, 1956. King escaped injury in that attack, and a second bungled bombing of his home in January 1957, but he was nearly killed on September 20, 1958, while signing copies of his book Stride toward Freedom at a store in New York City’s Harlem ghetto. A deranged black woman, Izola Ware Curry, approached King and stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener, missing his aorta by a fraction of an inch. Although indicted for attempted murder, Curry was ruled mentally incompetent for trial, committed indefinitely to Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

271

272

K I N G, M A R T I N L U T H E R , J R .

During the Montgomery boycott, King and close associates founded a new civil rights group, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), pledged to eliminate racial discrimination through nonviolent civil disobedience, in the style of Mohandas Gandhi. He subsequently led campaigns in Albany, Georgia (1962); Birmingham, Alabama (1963); St. Augustine, Florida (1964); Selma, Alabama (1965); and Chicago, Illinois (1966), where he protested de facto residential segregation and was struck with a brick during one protest march. At every turn, he was stalked by racists from the KKK and other groups that pledged to murder him, his close associates, and members of his family. Specific attacks included two bombings in Birmingham on May 12, 1963, targeting King’s motel room and the home of his brother, Rev. A. D. King; and a St. Augustine raid that left King’s rented beach cottage riddled with bullets on May 29, 1964. In June 1966, when King joined a “March against Fear” through Mississippi, militant Klansmen hatched several plots to kill him with bombs or long-range rifles. None worked out, but one Ku Klux faction—the self-styled Cottonmouth Moccasin Gang—kidnapped elderly sharecropper Ben Chester White on June 10, murdering him outside Natchez in the hope that Dr. King would come to lead a memorial service, thereby presenting himself as a target. Once again, their plans fell through. On April 4, 1967, King delivered the first of several televised speeches denouncing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, calling U.S. government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” That stance alienated many self-styled liberals—including President Lyndon Johnson—who were happy to support black civil rights, as long as African Americans abstained from “meddling” in foreign policy. King also cited U.S. poverty as a critical issue, regardless of race, and planned a massive Poor People’s March on Washington, D.C., for April 1968. Two months before that campaign’s scheduled launch, black sanitation workers in Memphis struck against discrimination in their salaries and unsafe work conditions. Dr. King arrived to lead a protest demonstration on March 28, but it degenerated into violence and left King disconsolate, refusing to proceed with the march on Washington unless he first could lead a peaceful demonstration in Memphis. King returned to the River City on April 3, in the face of numerous death threats, and that night delivered his final speech to a capacity crowd at the Mason Temple. “We’ve got some difficult days ahead,” he declared. “But it doesn’t really matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight.

KING, MARTIN LUTHER, JR.

I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” With his murder the following day, some observers hailed his last speech as prophetic. Following King’s murder, African Americans rioted in 125 cities nationwide, leaving 46 persons dead, 2,600 injured, and 21,270 jailed on various charges. Published estimates of property damage ranged from $45 million ($296 million today) to $67 million (now $441 million). King’s death also persuaded many African Americans to abandon nonviolent protest—the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee promptly shortened its name—while affiliating with more militant groups, such as the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Indications of conspiracy in King’s assassination were apparent from the moment when the fatal shot was fired. Witnesses at the Lorraine Motel reported a masked figure fleeing on foot from shrubbery across the street, and prosecutors later claimed the shot came from a bathroom in a nearby rooming house (whose windows, critics noted, offered a poor view at best of the sniper’s target). On Beale Street, where the killer conveniently dropped a rifle (never positively matched to the fatal bullet) and other evidence incriminating James Earl Ray, observers described a white Ford Mustang as the probable getaway car. During the manhunt that ensued, a CB (Citizens' Band) radio broadcast diverted police to the wrong side of town, reporting a nonexistent car chase with shots fired from a mythical second white Mustang (later dismissed as a “prank” by an unidentified teenager). When Ray was finally identified from fingerprints and traced to an Atlanta rooming house, FBI agents found the abandoned Mustang’s ashtray filled to overflowing—but Ray had never smoked a day in his life. The FBI, in fact, was part of the problem. Director J. Edgar Hoover had despised King since the minister’s emergence as a civil rights leader in 1955–1956, and had conducted countless illegal harassment campaigns against King, his colleagues, and the SCLC. Aside from bugging offices and bedrooms, furnishing prurient tapes of King’s extramarital affairs to President Lyndon Johnson and Southern congressmen who held the FBI’s budgetary strings, Hoover publicly denounced King as “the most notorious liar” in the United States and regaled anyone who would listen—from the White House to the tabloid press—with tales of King’s alleged “communist ties.” On one occasion in 1964, Hoover approved mailing of one bedroom recording to King’s home, with an anonymous letter suggesting that King should commit suicide to avoid public disgrace. In 1967, Hoover launched a secret and illegal COINTELPRO operation (short for Counter Intelligence Program) that labeled the SPLC a “black nationalist hate group” and stated its goal in simple terms: “Prevent the RISE OF A BLACK ‘MESSIAH’ who could unify, and electrify, the black nationalist movement.” No one who knew Hoover doubted that Dr. King was his primary target. With that background, it is no surprise that some observers criticized the FBI’s performance in pursuit of King’s assassin. First, the bureau’s legendary

273

274

K I N G, M A R T I N L U T H E R , J R .

fingerprint department took 15 days to identify the trove of latent fingerprints left by Ray (or someone else?) in Memphis. Meanwhile, agents who participated in the chase reported egregious lapses in professionalism by various G-men. In the Atlanta field office, Arthur Murtagh says that his fellow agents gloated over King’s murder while drinking champagne, one cheering, “They got Zorro! [Spanish for ‘fox’, Hoover’s code name for King]. They finally got the son of a bitch!” In Los Angeles, agent William Turner later said that indications of conspiracy were “systematically washed out” by the FBI, in favor of a preconceived “lone-gunman” scenario. On the ground in Memphis, there were hints aplenty. The day before King’s arrival, April 2, a supposed “advance man” from the SPLC—never identified, described variously as a dark-skinned white man or a light-skinned African American—called at the Lorraine Motel to complain about the room booked for King. Motel managers had reserved a large, secure room on the ground floor, but the “advance man” insisted that King preferred a second-floor room overlooking the swimming pool in back, where he would be gunned down on April 4. Memphis police had prepared to keep watch over King on his visit, with two of the city’s rare black detectives assigned to cover the Lorraine Motel from windows of a nearby fire station. Soon after King’s arrival on April 3, both officers were relieved of duty on direct orders from the city’s police commissioner—a retired FBI agent. Subsequent claims that both were moved because of anonymous threats to their lives remain undocumented today, but their removal left Dr. King effectively unguarded at the moment he was shot. James Earl Ray was an enigma, in himself. A lifelong petty criminal, who once nearly fell out of his getaway car after a penny-ante stickup, he escaped from Missouri’s state prison at Jefferson City on April 23, 1967, and was thereafter transformed into something resembling a trained secret agent. (Not without help, perhaps, because another inmate’s fingerprints were attached to his Missouri “Wanted” poster.) In flight, with no visible means of support, Ray traveled to Canada, back and forth across the United States, and after King’s murder fled once more through Canada, to England, on to Portugal, then back to London for his eventual capture. Passports were required, and Ray had several, each in the name of a living individual who at least vaguely resembled him, but who, allegedly, had never met or heard of him. Overall, Ray spent at least $9,000 ($61,643 today) in transit, while earning $664 from his only documented part-time job. Ray’s story, from the day of his arrest until he died, was that a stranger called “Raoul” had bankrolled and directed his extensive travels, leading him on with promises of a free life in Rhodesia if Ray held up his end of a supposed gun-running scheme. Various authors have attempted to identify “Raoul,” and spokesmen for the Department of Justice insist that Ray survived on loans from his brothers and various holdups on three continents (none of which can be

KING, MARTIN LUTHER, JR.

proven). Ray’s lone-gunman motive for killing King? A combination of personal racism (possible, but wholly absent from his long record of mercenary offenses), and pursuit of a hypothetical—possibly mythical—“bounty” on King, floated in prison rumors while Ray was incarcerated. How he planned to collect the payoff, if he lived and escaped, is anyone’s guess. The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) tried to solve that riddle in 1979, after concluding that although Ray shot King himself (a fact that he denied), “there is a likelihood” that it was the result of a conspiracy. The plotters, according to Congress, were Ray and his two brothers (neither ever charged), the trio hoping to collect an “open” $30,000 contract ($206,000 today) on King’s life, offered to all comers by wealthy bigots John Kauffmann and John Sutherland (both deceased when the committee accused them). The HSCA speculated on possible contacts between Ray’s brothers and the wouldbe murder financers, but produced no evidence. At least three alternate conspiracy theories exist. The suspects include: (1) The Ku Klux Klan or an affiliated racist group. Klansmen undeniably stalked King from 1956 to 1968, making several unsuccessful attempts on his life. When James Earl Ray was arrested in London, he initially retained defense lawyer Arthur Hanes Sr.—a former FBI agent, segregationist ex-mayor of Birmingham, and (according to FBI informant Gary Thomas Rowe) a dues-paying member of the KKK. Although Hanes denied Klan membership, his best-known clients prior to Ray included Klansmen charged with murder in Alabama and North Carolina. The HSCA heard testimony indicating that Klan headquarters paid Hanes to represent Ray in 1968; Hanes and various KKK leaders denied it, claiming his fee only covered representation of the North Carolina defendants. Later, while appealing his conviction, Ray was represented by longtime Klansman J. B. Stoner, head of the neo-Nazi National States Rights Party (NSRP). NSRP member Joseph Milteer described several plots to kill King in 1963, at the same time that he predicted the murder of President John F. Kennedy ( JFK). (2) Unnamed racist politicians. Alabama author William Bradford Huie joined to Ray’s defense team in 1968, and wrote a three-part series for Look magazine about Ray. The first two installments claimed that Huie had knowledge of a plot to kill King during that presidential election year, to spark ghetto riots (which it did) and thus elect a conservative successor to President Lyndon Johnson (which occurred, with the victory of Richard Nixon). Strangely, in the third installment of the series—and a later book, He Slew the Dreamer (1970)—Huie contradicted himself, contending that Ray either killed King himself, or as part of an insignificant “little conspiracy,” involving only “little men” who

275

276

K I N G, M A R T I N L U T H E R , J R .

were, presumably, not worth pursuing. Explaining the strange turnaround, Huie claimed that his contract with Ray required him (Huie) to publish only “Ray’s version” of events prior to adjudication of the case. Publication of the full contract by journalist Harold Weisberg, in 1971, disproved that contention. The contract contained no such stipulation. (3) Organized crime. In early 1968, soon after joining the Memphis garbage strike, King reportedly called comedian–activist Dick Gregory with questions about the Mafia. Gregory briefed him on underworld ghetto rackets, and the Mob’s extensive interests in trucking and waste-haulage trades. Carlos Marcello, a prime suspect in the JFK assassination, was a die-hard racist and supporter of the KKK, who used Klansmen as “muscle” to avoid self-incrimination. His empire encompassed Memphis— where witness John McFerren allegedly heard a Marcello associate on April 4, 1968, giving some unknown phone caller instructions to “shoot the son of a bitch on the balcony.” Unknown gunmen later fired on McFerren’s home, and although the HSCA confirmed association between Marcello and the man McFerren overhead, the committee ultimately found McFerren’s testimony meaningless. Although actual courts consistently denied Ray’s appeals, a three-hour mock trial was televised by HBO on April 4, 1993. That broadcast condensed 54 hours of testimony heard in January, in a Memphis courtroom, with a friend of Dr. King—New York attorney William Francis Pepper—representing Ray (who “attended” the trial via satellite, from prison). The mock trial’s mock jury, perhaps predictably, acquitted Ray, which had no impact whatsoever on his reallife legal situation. Pepper subsequently wrote a book, Orders to Kill (1995), which claimed to identify the elusive “Raoul” and labeled King’s murder a government contract killing. Aside from “Raoul,” two identified suspects other than James Earl Ray have been publicly named as alleged conspirators in Dr. King’s death. One, Loyd Jowers, owned the Memphis Beale Street diner where the supposed murder weapon and other items bearing Ray’s fingerprints were discarded on April 4, 1968. A quarter-century later, in December 1993, Jowers appeared on ABC’s Primetime news program, relating details of a supposed Mafia–government plot to kill King, using Ray as a scapegoat. According to Jowers, King was actually shot by a now-deceased Memphis policeman, Lieutenant Earl Clark. King’s family filed a civil wrongful-death lawsuit in 1998, naming Jowers and “other unknown coconspirators” as responsible for King’s murder. Jurors found Jowers alone responsible, on December 9, 1999, commenting that the plot also included unspecified “governmental agencies.” (The King family claimed “vindication,” but received no financial award from the court.) A parallel investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, launched in August 1998, reported in

KU KLUX KLAN

2000 that conflicting statements and other odd behavior from Jowers made it impossible to work with him. Jowers died from a heart attack on May 20, 2000, at age 73. Later still, on April 5, 2002, a minister in Graham, Florida, named his late father as the triggerman in Dr. King’s slaying. At a press conference convened to clear his conscience, Rev. Ronald Denton Wilson, named his father, KKK member Henry Clay Wilson, as the assassin—or, at least, one of them. “My father was the main guy,” Wilson said. “It wasn’t a racist thing; he thought Martin Luther King was connected with communism, and he wanted to get him out of the way. He kept saying it was the patriotic thing to do. He said he had to save the country.” Three other Klansmen were involved, he said, while declining to offer their names. Dead from emphysema since 1990, Henry Wilson was beyond interrogation, but FBI agent Ron Grenier interviewed the son, telling reporters that he took the statement “seriously, but the issue had not risen to the level of a full investigation.” Rev. Wilson went on to say, “My dad told me James Earl Ray had nothing to do with the shooting other than to buy a rifle for them. My dad was the one who shot Dr. King.” He seemed about to disclose the rifle’s whereabouts, when his son—also a minister—interrupted to read a statement expressing sympathy for King’s family, adding that his own would make no further statements. Thus far, no evidence of any kind has been forthcoming. Further Reading Melanson, Philip, and Noah Griffin. The Martin Luther King Assassination: New Revelations on the Conspiracy and Cover-Up, 1968–1991. New York: Shapolsky Publishers, 1994. Newton, Michael. A Case of Conspiracy. Los Angeles: Holloway House, 1980. Pepper, William. An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King. London: Verso, 2008. Posner, Gerald. Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Random House, 1998. Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives. National Archives. http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report. Wexler Stuart, and Larry Hancock. The Awful Grace of God: Religious Terrorism, White Supremacy, and the Unsolved Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2012.

KU KLUX KLAN (1866– ) The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is the oldest U.S. terrorist organization, dedicated to white supremacy and far-right politics. Its name derives from kuklos (Greek for “circle”), initially used in the name of a 19th-century collegiate fraternity, Kuklos Adelphon. Throughout its history the KKK has indulged in violence, including assassination of public figures.

277

278

KU KLUX KL AN

Six young Confederate veterans founded the original Klan as a social group at Pulaski, Tennessee, in spring 1866. They adopted arcane titles, donned ghostly costumes, and amused themselves by frightening the county’s superstitious ex-slaves. More chapters organized, with some members acting as vigilantes to keep newly freed African Americans “in their place.” In April 1867, with the advent of “Radical Reconstruction,” Klansmen reorganized their order as a paramilitary force to defend white supremacy and Democratic “home rule.” Ex-general Nathan Bedford Forrest served as the Klan’s “grand wizard,” and other Confederate officers ruled individual states as “grand dragons.” At its peak, with a purported 550,000 members, the KKK rode in all 11 former Confederate states, plus Kentucky and Missouri. Reports of a small chapter in New York, supported by a photograph that may have been hoaxed, remain unconfirmed. Wherever they gathered, Klansmen waged guerrilla war against Republicans, black freedmen, Northern “carpetbaggers,” and Southern-born “scalawags” who supported Reconstruction. They murdered thousands—1,081 in Louisiana alone, between April and November 1868—and wounding, flogging, and mutilating many more. Most victims were not public figures, but the list of dead included judges, law enforcement officers, state legislators, and local officials. Federal prosecutions, including declaration of martial law in South Carolina, allegedly dissolved the Klan by 1872, but reports of masked violence continued through 1876. Related groups, including Louisiana’s White League and Red Shirts in the Carolinas, “redeemed” every Southern state for white rule by 1877. Vigilante “whitecaps” spread the Klan’s tradition in the early 20th century, with migration of Southern farmers to the Midwest. William Joseph Simmons, a defrocked minister, revived the Klan as a fraternal order in 1915, restricting membership to native-born white Protestant males, with auxiliaries added for women and children, plus a parallel Riders of the Red Robe for naturalized citizens. By 1924, the Klan had spread to every state, with estimates of peak membership ranging from two to nine million. The order dominated politics in several states, on both sides of the Mason–Dixon Line, reputedly enlisting President Warren Harding. Although most historians dispute that claim, various governors, U.S. senators and congressmen were certainly Klansmen, as were thousands more state and local officials. Again, the Klan pursued a violent course, adding attacks on immigrants, Catholics, Jews, labor unions, and “immoral” whites to its traditional targets. Less lethal than their forebears, Klansmen still killed dozens of victims over two decades and flogging and assaulting hundreds more. The era’s only bona fide assassination occurred in May 1926, when Klansman Asa Bartlett killed three persons with a bomb mailed to a political rival in Muskegon, Michigan.

KU KLUX KLAN

After confessing, Bartlett received a life sentence. Other notorious crimes, coupled with recurring scandals, sapped Klan membership during the Great Depression. A $685,305 federal tax lien officially retired the national Klan in April 1944, but local units survived through World War II. The Cold War and President Harry Truman’s civil rights policy sparked another KKK revival in 1946. Racist murders resumed in the South, coupled with bombings of black homes in formerly white neighborhoods. The era’s most prominent victim Harry Moore, Florida leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) killed with his wife in the bombing of their home at Christmas 1951. Other black victims were slain for attempting to vote, or for displaying lack of deference toward whites. Three years later, in May 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court gave Klan recruiters a new lease on life by banning public school segregation. Rival Klans proliferated, many resorting to violence. Over the next decade, civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became targets for Klan murder plots. A Mississippi Klansman assassinated NAACP official Medgar Evers in June 1963, and evaded punishment for 31 years. Throughout the Deep South, violence was encouraged by refusal of white juries to convict Klansmen who murdered blacks and civil rights workers. Other victims included O’Neal Moore, the first black deputy sheriff in Louisiana (June 1965), and Wharlest Jackson, another Mississippi NAACP leader, killed by a car bomb in February 1967. Klan members in the Chicago Police Department plotted to kill Mayor Richard Daley with a bazooka in 1968, but were arrested before they could strike. In the 1970s, college-educated leader David Duke sought to give the Klan a more sophisticated public image, then resigned from the group, and won election to Louisiana’s state legislature, but continuing affiliation with the KKK and neo-Nazi groups scuttled Duke’s political career. Rival Bill Wilkinson dominated the national Klan scene in the early 1980s, until his exposure as a longtime FBI informant. Thereafter, rival splinter Klans proliferated nationwide, often holding joint rallies with young racist skinheads. Violent acts linked to Klansmen in the latter decades of the 20th century include the massacre of five Communist Workers’ Party members at Grennsboro, North Carolina, on November 3, 1979; the lynching of Michael Donald in Mobile, Alabama, on March 20, 1981; the assassination of Denver radio talk-show host Alab Berg on June 18, 1984; arson attacks on two South Carolina churches in June 1995; and the November 2008 murder of Cynthia Lynch at a Klan initiation ceremony in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana. The KKK endures today, with 28 rival factions claiming 152 chapters in 34 states during 2012. Sporadic violence continues, with a potential for future tragedy, as demonstrated by the case of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, a Klansman before he joined the radical militia movement.

279

280

KU KLUX KL AN

See also: Evers, Medgar Wiley (1925–1963); Jackson, Wharlest, Sr. (1930–1967); King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968); Moore, Harry Tyson (1905–1951).

Further Reading Chalmers, David. Hooded Americanism. 3rd ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1987. Newton, Michael. The Ku Klux Klan: History, Organization, Language, Influence and Activities of America’s Most Notorious Secret Society. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006. Trelease, Allen. White Terror. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Wade, Wyn. The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987.

L LAMBRAKIS, GRIGORIS (1912–1963) On May 22, 1963, Dr. Grigoris Lambrakis, a Greek gynecologist and member of parliament, delivered the keynote speech to an antiwar rally in Thessaloniki. Soon afterward, right-wing extremists Emannouel Emannouilides and Spyro Gotzamanis drove past him in a three-wheeled open truck, one striking Lambrakis over the head with a club in plain view of numerous witnesses. Lambrakis suffered a fractured skull and brain damage, dying in a local hospital on May 27. Police initially described the killing as a “traffic accident,” assigning young magistrate Christos Sartzetakis to prove that contention. Instead, Sartzetakis uncovered a network of extremists serving the police as extralegal terrorists. Emannouilides Spyro Gotzamanis were subsequently charged with murder, and four high-ranking officers were indicted as accomplices. They went to trial in February 1966 and were convicted in October, receiving 11-year prison terms. Grigoris Lambrakis was born at Kerasita, a village in the Tegea district of Arcadia, Peloponnese, on April 3, 1912. He left home after high school, to study medicine at the University of Athens, while simultaneously pursuing a lifelong passion for athletics, breaking the Greek record for the long jump and winning a spot on the national team. World War II interrupted his medical studies, as the Axis Powers occupied his homeland. Lambrakis joined the Greek resistance, and in 1943 financed public food banks for displaced persons with proceeds from a newly created Union of Greek Athletes. After the war, Lambrakis completed his studies and joined the University of Athens’s School of Medicine as a lecturer in gynecology. On the side, he maintained a free clinic for patients unable to pay for health care. His wartime experience with fascism pushed Lambrakis to the left, politically. He joined the pacifist movement, opposing nuclear weapons and war in general. The Greek Civil War of 1946–1949 resulted in near-eradication of the nation’s Communist Party, leaving the United Democratic Left (EDA) as the only legally recognized leftist party in Greece. Lambrakis joined, and in 1961 was elected to the Hellenic parliament from Piraeus. During that same year, he played a leading role in the creation of the Commission for International Détente and Peace, serving as its first vice president. On April 21, 1963, the Commission for International Détente and Peace led a pacifist march from Marathon to Athens, interrupted by police who jailed many demonstrators. Lambrakis,

282

L APORTE, PIERRE

Z The murder of Grigoris Lambrakis inspired Greek diplomat and author Vassilis Vassilikos to publish a novel dramatizing the case in 1967. The book’s title, Z, derives from the first letter of the Greek word Zei (translated as “He lives!”), frequently drawn on walls by graffitists during the 1960s. Expatriate Greek filmmaker Constantinos Gavras brought the story to theaters worldwide in 1969, with Yves Montand caste as the martyred pacifist, and Jean-Louis Trintignant in the role of Magistrate Sartzetakis (avoiding all use of real names). The film received five Academy Award nominations, winning Oscars for Best Film Editing and Best Foreign Language Film in 1970.

shielded from arrest by parliamentary immunity, finished the march alone with a banner bearing a peace symbol. Those activities made Lambrakis a natural target for right-wing forces led by Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis. Supporters of Lambrakis blamed the Karamanlis regime for orchestrating his murder, and although criminal charges never reached the prime minister’s office, Karamanlis and his National Radical Union party lost the parliamentary election in November 1963. Karamanlis himself soon left Greece, traveling under the pseudonym Triantafyllides, and spent the next 11 years in Paris, under self-imposed exile. That victory for the moderate left was short lived. Greek generals staged a coup in April 1967, imposing rule by a brutal military junta that continued through 1974. Under the junta, Magistrate Sartzetakis and the attorney general who prosecuted Lambrakis’s killers were dismissed from their positions, and Sartzetakis spent a year in prison. Many Greeks still feel that those responsible for the assassination went unpunished. Further Reading Dulis, Thomas. The Iron Storm: The Impact on Greek Culture of the Military Junta, 1967–1974. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2011. Miller, James. The United States and the Making of Modern Greece: History and Power, 1950–1974. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008. Nafpliotis, Alexandros. Britain and the Greek Colonels: Accommodating the Junta in the Cold War. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012.

LAPORTE, PIERRE (1921–1970) On October 10, 1970, members of the radical Front de libération du Québec (FLQ; Liberation Front of Québec) kidnapped provincial Deputy Premier

LAPORTE, PIERRE

and Minister of Labor Pierre Laporte from his home in Saint-Lambert, across from Montreal on the south bank of the St. Lawrence River. The abductors, members of the FLQ’s Chénier Cell—based in Montreal and named after JeanOlivier Chénier, a martyr of the Lower Canada Rebellion against British rule, in November 1837—dubbed Laporte the “Minister of Unemployment and Assimilation,” holding him hostage in exchange for release of perceived “political prisoners” jailed by the federal government. British diplomat James Richard Cross had been kidnapped five days earlier, resulting in identical demands. Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act of 1914, authorizing widespread raids against suspected FLQ supporters, telling journalists, “Nothing that either the Government of Canada or the Government of Quebec has done or failed to do, now or in the future, could possibly excuse any injury to either of these two innocent men. The gun pointed at their heads have FLQ fingers on the trigger. Should any injury result, there is no explanation that could condone the act. Should there be harm done to these men, the Government promises unceasing pursuit of those responsible.” Laporte, shot dead, was found on October 18, in the trunk of a car owned by Chénier Cell leader Paul Rose. Cross was released, unharmed, on December 3, 1967. Pierre Laporte was born in Montreal on February 25, 1921, a grandson of renowned statesman Alfred Leduc, who served in the Canadian House of Commons from 1917 to 1921, and in the legislative assembly of Québec from 1921 to 1931. Laporte was a reporter for the newspaper Le Devoir from 1945 through 1961, best known for his attacks on Québec premier Maurice Duplessis, between 1945 and 1959. In 1958, Laporte was one of the reporters who broke the scandal linking Duplessis to kickbacks from sales of natural gas, resulting in creation of a Royal Québec separatists murdered Deputy Premier and Commission on Morality in Minister of Labor Pierre Laporte. (Brian Smith/ Corbis) Public Spending.

283

284

L APORTE, PIERRE

After Duplessis died in office, in September 1959, Laporte tried his own hand at politics, winning election to the National Assembly of Québec from Chambly as a member of the Québec Liberal Party’s left wing. In 1970, he ran for the seat of retiring premier Jean Lesage, but was edged out by rival Robert Bourassa. Upon taking office, Bourassa, in turn, named Laporte to serve as his vice premier and minister of labor. The FLQ was not impressed by Laporte’s left-wing credentials, and selected him as a target during Québec’s 1970 “October Crisis.” Between October 16, 1967, and year’s end, authorities in Québec staged 1,628 raids under terms of the War Measures Act, jailing 468 persons on

FRONT DE LIBÉRATION DU QUÉBEC (FLQ) The FLQ was founded in February 1963, as a Québécois nationalist group with Marxist–Leninist philosophies, ostensibly committed to overthrowing the government of Québec, leading the province in secession from Canada, and establishing a French-speaking “workers’ society.” The group’s first terrorist attack, firebombing of three military barracks, occurred on March 8, 1963. By June 16, when 18 members were captured, the FLQ had executed 15 bombings, killing one victim. A second wave of violence, between July 13, 1963, and April 9, 1964, included two murders, two bombings, three arson attacks, and four robberies. In 1965–1966, after merging with a rival group—the Popular Liberation Movement—FLQ members set off 12 more bombs, one of which backfired to kill member Jean Corbo. FBI spokesmen claimed that FLQ members conspired with elements of the Black Panther Party to bomb New York City’s Statue of Liberty and other American monuments, but jurors acquitted all defendants in that case. Nineteen more FLQ bombings rocked Montreal and environs during 1967–1969, before terrorism peaked with the “October Crisis” of 1970. The last recorded acts of violence occurred in early 1971, with the firebombing of a Brink’s Company office (January 6) and the dynamiting of a post office (February 19). Federal authorities, led by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), waged their own covert, illegal war against the FLQ in 1971 and 1972, including arson attacks on known FLQ meeting places and the murder of FLQ member François Mario Bachand in Paris, on March 29, 1971. Exposure of that campaign paralleled revelations of the FBI’s illegal “COINTELPRO” operations in America, resulting in dismissal of several RCMP officers.

LENNON, JOHN WINSTON

suspicion of subversion; of those, 408 were later released without any formal charges being filed. FLQ members charged with participating in Laporte’s abduction and murder or related crimes included Chénier Cell members Paul Rose, Pierre Vallières, Robert Lemieux, Jacques Rose, Michel Chartrand, Charles Gagnon, Jacques Larue-Langlois, Marc Carbonneau, Francis Simard, and Bernard Lortie. Paul Rose received a life sentence for Laporte’s murder on March 13, 1971, with a matching term for kidnapping on November 30. Francis Simard was sentenced to life for murder on May 20, 1971. Jurors convicted Bernard Lortie of kidnapping on September 22, 1971, and he received a life sentence on November 22. Jurors acquitted Jacques Rose of kidnapping on December 9, 1972, whereupon prosecutors charged him with the lesser offenses of assisting kidnappers after the fact and forcible confinement, but jurors cleared him of those counts as well, on February 23, 1973. Pierre Vallières received a one-year suspended sentence on October 4, 1972, for conviction on three counts of counseling kidnapping for political purposes. Paul Rose was released on December 20, 1982, after a new investigation found he was not present when Laporte was killed. Further Reading Gray, Carol. The FLQ: Seven Years of Terrorism. Richmond Hill, ON: Simon & Schuster of Canada, 1970. Wainstein, Eleanor. The Cross and Laporte Kidnappings, Montreal, October 1970. Arlington, VA: Rand Publications, 1976.

LENNON, JOHN WINSTON (1940–1980) At 10:49 P.M. on December 8, 1980, expatriate British musician John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono returned home from working at the Record Plant recording studio, to the Dakota, an elite apartment house located on Manhattan’s Central Park West. Outside the Dakota’s main entrance, obsessed stalker Mark David Chapman fired five shots at Lennon from a .38-caliber revolver, striking his target four times in the back and left shoulder. After Lennon fell, Chapman remained at the scene, reading a novel—The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger—until police arrived to arrest him. Psychiatric evaluation at Bellevue Hospital found Chapman delusional, but competent for trial. Charged with second-degree murder, Chapman pled guilty on June 22, 1981, citing orders from God to do so. In August 1981, Chapman received a sentence of 20 years to life, with a court order for psychiatric treatment while in custody. Thus far, all of his applications for parole have been denied. A native of Liverpool, England, born on October 9, 1940, John Lennon was a natural musician and songwriter, involved in Britain’s “skiffle” craze—popular music blending jazz, blues, and folk influences—during the 1950s. Lennon

285

286

LENNON, JOHN WINSTON

formed his first band, the Quarrymen, in 1956, joined by Paul McCartney the following year, and by George Harrison in 1958. By August 1960, that band had been transformed into the Beatles, soon to take the world by storm. Lennon and McCartney teamed as songwriters, their music and lyrics eventually making the Beatles the best-selling band in history, with sales exceeding one billion records. In 2008, nearly four decades after the group’s dissolution, they still topped Billboard magazine’s list of the all-time most successful “Hot 100” artists. Four years later, they still held Billboard’s Musician John Lennon, alleged target of a CIA record for most number-one murder conspiracy. (Redferns) hits on the “Hot 100” chart, a total of 20. The Beatles broke up in 1970, each of its members pursuing solo careers— and, in McCartney’s case, founding another successful band, Wings, with wife Linda. Reasons cited for the breakup include personal fallings out, weariness over long-term collaboration, and the disruptive influence of Lennon’s second wife, Yoko Ono. Whatever the case, none of the ex-Beatles suffered financially from going their separate ways, and Lennon remained a fixture in the public eye after emigrating to New York. While continuing to write and record original music, Lennon became politically active, particularly in denunciation of the ongoing Vietnam War. President Richard Nixon sought to deport him, ordering an FBI investigation to provide some rational excuse, and although the bureau filed some 300 pages of reports on Lennon’s movements and affiliations during 1971–1972, the Watergate scandal soon distracted Nixon from petty harassment of perceived “enemies,” driving him from office in 1974. By then, the last U.S. troops had withdrawn from Vietnam, and a communist victory there, in April 1975, removed any further motive for leftist protests. Lennon announced his retirement in October 1975, devoting himself to newborn son Sean, but he still found time to write a song for ex-Beatle Ringo Starr in 1976. Four years later, in October 1980, Lennon returned to the music

LENNON, JOHN WINSTON

scene with a single, “(Just Like) Starting Over,” and followed that with his Double Fantasy album in November. A full-scale comeback appeared to be in the offing, when Mark Chapman cut short his life. Some observers ranked Lennon’s murder as an assassination, due to his high public profile coupled with political activities, but no conspiracy theories surfaced until 1990, when author Fenton Bresler blamed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for plotting Lennon’s death. Bresler’s contention grew from the observation of New York Police Department (NYPD) homicide detective Arthur O’Connor, who said, “It’s possible Mark [Chapman] could have been used by somebody. I saw him the night of the murder. I studied him intensely. He looked like he could have been programmed.” Chapman’s own statements in custody, describing “dead silence in the brain” and disembodied voices chanting “Do it, do it, do it,” evoked memories of the CIA’s long-running mind-control experiments (“Project MKUltra”) during the 1950s and 1960s. Similar allegations, involving hypnosis and drugs, have been raised in the case of Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, convicted of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. In 1997, after 15 years of litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union, FBI headquarters released the bureau’s file on John Lennon’s under the Freedom of Information Act. Documents collected in 1972 reveal that President Richard Nixon ordered surveillance on Lennon, along with other antiwar activists, and that agents of the CIA collaborated in that surveillance as a part of “Operation Chaos”—a criminal violation of the CIA’s charter, which at the time forbid any activity on U.S. soil. In 2010, British author Phil Strongman published a new study of Lennon’s assassination, building on the Bresler theory that Chapman was in fact a CIA pawn. His “evidence” includes the fact that Chapman—a self-described obsessive fan of Lennon’s—did not own a single one of Lennon’s recordings, nor any books or magazines about his “idol”; that Chapman visited Beirut, Lebanon, for no apparent reason during a period of intense CIA activity there; and that he embarked on an round-the-world trip in 1975, while unemployed and virtually destitute. In fact, Strongman claims that Chapman was not Lennon’s killer in fact. As he told The Guardian in December 2010, “The bullets slapped into Lennon’s body so closely together that pathologists later had trouble marking out the different entry points. If all of these shots came from Chapman, it was a miraculous piece of shooting. ‘Put simply, the authorities’ investigation, or lack of it, into the assassination was shockingly slack and beggars belief. In fact, if any of them came from him it was miraculous because Chapman was standing on Lennon’s right and, as the autopsy report and death certificate later made clear, all Lennon’s wounds were in the left side of his body.” Prosecutors in New York rejected the Bresler and Strongman conspiracy theories. The CIA, thus far, has no comment.

287

288

LETELIER DEL SOL AR, MARCOS ORL ANDO

Further Reading Bresler, Fenton. Who Killed John Lennon? New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. The John Lennon FBI Files. http://www.lennonfbifiles.com. Seaman, Fred. The Last Days of John Lennon. New York: Birch Lane Press, 1991. Strongman, Phil. John Lennon: Life, Times and Assassination. Liverpool: Bluecoat Press, 2010.

LETELIER DEL SOLAR, MARCOS ORLANDO (1932–1976) On September 21, 1976, exiled Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier left home in Washington, D.C., bound for his office with personal assistant Ronni Moffitt and her husband, Michael. At 9:35 A.M., as their car rounded Sheridan Circle on Embassy Row, a bomb attached beneath the driver’s side exploded, shattering the vehicle and propelling it into collision with another car, parked outside the Irish embassy. Michael Moffitt escaped with a minor head wound, and his wife and Letelier were transported to George Washington University Medical Center in dire condition. Letelier, with both legs severed and his lower torso shattered, died at 9:50 A.M. Ronni Moffitt survived 47 minutes longer, with her larynx and carotid artery severed by shrapnel. Spokesmen for the Federal Bureau of Investigation linked Letelier’s assassination to a series of murders committed by Chile’s National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), under orders from dictator Augusto Pinochet, targeting expatriates opposed to his regime. Orlando Letelier was born in Temuco, Chile, on April 13, 1932. He studied at the Instituto Nacional in Santiago, and completed his education at the Chilean Military Academy prior to entering the army. Leaving the military at age 20, he enrolled as a law student at the University of Chile and graduated in 1954, then spent the next five years as a research analyst with the state’s Copper Office (now the National Copper Corporation of Chile, CODELCO). In 1959, Letelier was dismissed from that position for supporting Marxist candidate Salvador Allende’s second campaign for the presidency on a platform including nationalization of Chile’s industry and natural resources. Allende lost that race—as he had in 1952, and would again in 1958 and 1964—but finally emerged victorious in 1970, naming Orlando Letelier as his ambassador to the United States in 1971. Allende’s leftist regime was despised in Washington, where President Richard Nixon, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) schemed to depose Allende and restore the dominance of U.S. corporate interests in Chile. Chief among the private-sector conspirators, later confirmed by declassified CIA documents, was the ITT Corporation, 70-percent owner of the Chilean Telephone Company and primary financial supporter of El Mercurio, a right-wing Chilean newspaper clamoring for Allende’s removal.

LETELIER DEL SOLAR, MARCOS ORLANDO

President Allende recalled Letelier from Washington in 1973, to serve successively as minister of foreign affairs, interior, and defense, but it was too late to save Allende’s administration. General Augusto Pinochet led a military coup against the government on September 11 of that year, and Allende reportedly committed suicide while besieged by troops at La Moneda Palace in Santiago. Letelier was arrested the same day, and spent 12 months under torture at various concentration camps before his release and exile to Caracas, Venezuela, in September 1974. From there, he made his way to Washington in 1975, and became a senior fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. Later, he served as director of the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute and taught at American University’s School of International Service in Washington, D.C. On the side, he wrote, lectured, and lobbied tirelessly against the Pinochet regime, emerging as the primary voice of Chilean opposition to dictatorship. As a result, in September 1976, the junta stripped Letelier of his Chilean citizenship. FBI agents identified DINA agent Michael Vernon Townley, a U.S. expatriate and former CIA employee, as the mastermind behind Letelier’s murder. Townley and his chief accomplice, Armando Fernandez Larios, had received visas to the United States from the U.S. ambassador to Paraguay, collaborating with neo-fascist dictator Alfredo Stroessner, whose regime provided forged Paraguayan passports. Chile agreed to Townley’s extradition on murder charges in 1978. In custody, Townley admitted hiring five Cuban exiles—José Dionisio Suárez, Alvin Ross Díaz, Virgilio Paz Romero, Guillermo Novo Sampoll, and Ignacio Novo Sampoll—to plant the bomb under Letelier’s car, and to bomb Cubana Flight 455 two weeks later, killing all 78 persons aboard. Townley and his wife turned state’s evidence against the bombers, in exchange for immunity from prosecution, testifying against Díaz and the Novo Sampoll brothers at their trial in January 1979. (Pinochet’s regime declined to extradite DINA officers Romero and Suárez.) The three defendants were convicted of first-degree murder, with the Novo Sampoll brothers receiving life prison terms, and Díaz was sentenced to 80 years. Townley and his wife vanished into the Witness Protection Program, and remain in hiding today. Armando Fernandez Larios fled Chile with FBI assistance in 1987, fearing that President Pinochet planned to kill him for refusal to cooperate in cover-ups related to Letelier’s slaying. On February 4, 1987, he pled guilty to one count of serving as an accessory to the murder, then was freed in exchange for testimony naming other plotters. Following Pinochet’s retirement in 1990, Chilean authorities undertook their own belated investigation of Letelier’s assassination. Ex-DINA leaders General Manuel Contreras and Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo were convicted of participation in the slaying on November 12, 1993, receiving lenient prison terms of seven and six years, respectively. General Pinochet was never charged with Letelier’s murder, though Chilean prosecutors indicted him for human rights violations

289

290

LETELIER DEL SOL AR, MARCOS ORL ANDO

in October 1998. Arrested in London, he remained under house arrest until March 2000, then returned to Chile, where Congress passed a constitutional amendment exempting ex-presidents from prosecution. He died in Santiago on December 10, 2006, without ever facing trial on any charge. Orlando Letelier’s assassination inspired a dramatic sequence in the 1983 crime drama Scarface. Late in the film, Cuban drug trafficker Tony Montana (played by Al Pacino) agrees to kill a troublesome journalist as a favor to his Colombian cocaine supplier. Traveling from Florida to New York City, Montana trails his target with one of the Colombian’s henchmen, after attaching a remote-control bomb to the reporter’s car, then balks upon seeing the reporter’s wife children in the vehicle. Before the imported assassin can trigger the

DIRECCIÓN DE INTELIGENCIA NACIONAL Chile’s National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) was founded in November 1973, as a military-intelligence unit under the fledgling dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, then was separated from the army to become an independent agency in June 1974. Three years later, it was renamed as the Central National de Informaciones (CNI; National Information Center), still led by General Manuel Contreras and Vice Director Raúl Iturriaga. Throughout the tenure of the Pinochet regime, suppression of dissent at home and abroad was the primary function of DINA/ CNI. Thousands of alleged “subversives” were detained, tortured, raped, and often murdered by the agencies operatives, supported—and sometimes directed—by the American CIA. As author Peter Kornbluh reports in The Pinochet File (2003, p. 171): “In some camps, routine sadism was taken to extremes. At Villa Grimaldi, recalcitrant prisoners were dragged to a parking lot; DINA agents then used a car or truck to run over and crush their legs. Prisoners there recalled one young man who was beaten with chains and left to die slowly from internal injuries. Rape was also a reoccurring form of abuse. DINA officers subjected female prisoners to grotesque forms of sexual torture that included insertion of rodents and, as tactfully described in the Commission report, ‘unnatural acts involving dogs’.” One such camp was Colonia Dignidad (now Villa Baviera), a haven for fugitive Nazis and second-generation fascists in Linares Province, founded and ruled by German expatriate Paul Schäfer. On a broader scale, DINA collaborated with intelligence agencies of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay in “Operation Condor,” murdering or “disappearing” at least 60,000 victims between 1975 and 1978.

LINCOLN, ABRAHAM

charge, Montana shoots him, thereby touching off a war with the Colombian cartel that ends with Montana’s death in a flamboyant gun battle. Further Reading Dinges, John, and Saul Landau. Assassination on Embassy Row. New York: Pantheon Books, 1981. Freed, Donald. Death in Washington: The Murder of Orlando Letelier. Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 1980. Hancock, Larry. Nexus: The CIA and Political Assassination. Southlake, TX: JFK Lancer Productions, 2011. Kornbluh, Peter. The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability. New York: The New Press, 2004. McCann, Joseph. Terrorism on American Soil: A Concise History of Plots and Perpetrators from the Famous to the Forgotten. Boulder, CO: Sentient Publication, 2006.

LINCOLN, ABRAHAM (1809–1865) On the evening of April 14, 1865—Good Friday—President Abraham Lincoln escorted his wife to Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., for a performance of the British play Our American Cousin. Joining the Lincolns, after several others had declined their invitation to the theater, were Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée, the daughter of New York senator Ira Harris. Their mood, like that throughout the nation’s capital, was buoyant, celebrating the surrender of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in Virginia five days earlier. Lincoln’s bodyguard, alcoholic slacker John Frederick Parker, left the presidential box unguarded while he slipped off to a nearby tavern, repeating the behavior that had seen him repeatedly charged—and curiously absolved—for dereliction of duty during his tenure as a city policeman. In his absence, famous actor and fanatical Confederate supporter John Wilkes Booth entered the box and shot Lincoln behind the left ear with a .44-caliber derringer, then stabbed Rathbone with a dagger before leaping down to the stage, breaking his left ankle on impact. Despite that painful injury, Booth played out his scene, shouting, “Sic semper tyrannis!” (“Thus always to tyrants,” in Latin), and hobbled out of the theater, escaping on horseback. Lincoln was carried to a nearby home, where he died at 7:22 A.M. on April 15. Lincoln and Rathbone were not the night’s only victims. Conspirators in league with Booth also planned to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. George Atzerodt rented a room at the Kirkwood Hotel, where Johnson resided, planning to attack the vice president in his room at 10:15 P.M. Instead, he lost his nerve while drinking in the bar downstairs, then wandered through the streets, discarding his knife, and spent the night in stuporous sleep at the Pennsylvania House Hotel. Lewis Powell, meanwhile, forced his way into Secretary Seward’s home at 10:00 P.M., armed

291

292

LINCOLN, ABR AHAM

with a pistol and a Bowie knife, first pistol-whipping Seward’s son, then stabbing Seward repeatedly as he lay in bed, recuperating from a fall suffered on April 5. A splint on Seward’s broken jaw saved him from fatal injury, before Powell fled into the night. Abraham Lincoln was born at Hodgenville, Kentucky, on February 12, 1809, and moved to Indiana with his family at age seven. He lost his mother two years later, then resettled in Illinois with his father and siblings at 13. He rarely saw the inside of a classroom, but educated himself at home, later remarking, “I studied with nobody.” Self-taught in law while working as a county surveyor, Lincoln won election to the Illinois state legislature in 1834, and was admitted to the bar two years later, practicing law with his wife’s cousin in Springfield. Although a “free soil” advocate, he did not favor outright abolition of slavery, declaring that the “institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils.” In 1846, he was elected to Congress, with a vow to serve only one term, then kept his promise and returned to private practice. Increasing agitation over slavery prompted Lincoln to seek a U.S. Senate seat in 1854, and again in 1858. He lost both races, but his speeches won sufficient admiration to secure the Republican presidential nomination in 1860. Lincoln’s victory in that contest, on a “free soil” platform, propelled 11 Southern states into secession from the Union, leading to the outbreak of America’s Civil War in April 1861. Three years later, he won reelection by uniting Republicans and War Democrats in the common cause of defeating the breakaway Confederacy and restoring the Union, an effort that ultimately proved successful—at least, on the surface—in April 1865. John Wilkes Booth and his fellow conspirators initially planned to kidnap President Lincoln and deliver him to the Confederate army as a hostage, to compel release of Southern prisoners of war. Those involved in the plot, aside from George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell, included Samuel Arnold, David Herold, Michael O’Laughlen, John Surratt, and John’s mother Mary Surratt, who moved from Maryland to Washington, D.C., hosting repeated meetings of the plotters at her home. An attempt to snatch Lincoln on March 17, 1865, during a scheduled visit to Campbell Military Hospital, fell through when Lincoln canceled the trip. Following General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Booth switched his plan from abduction to assassination, writing in his diary, “Our cause being almost lost, something decisive and great must be done.” After the attacks in Washington, Booth rendezvoused with David Herold in Maryland and rode to the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd (see sidebar), who set Booth’s broken ankle and provided him with crutches. Moving on from there, they spent five days and nights in a swamp, finally reaching Richard Garrett’s tobacco farm on April 24. Union soldiers arrived two days later, surrounding the barn where Booth and Herold were concealed. Herold chose surrender,

LINCOLN, ABRAHAM

and Booth refused to be taken alive. With the barn in flames, he fled, holding a rifle in one hand and a pistol in the other. Private Boston Corbett shot Booth in the neck, clipping his spinal cord, and Booth died two hours later, after muttering, “Tell my mother I die for my country.” Back in Washington, meanwhile, police raided Mary Surratt’s home, arresting her and son George, then remained to nab Lewis Powell when he turned up on April 17. George Atzerodt was captured on a farm at Germantown, Maryland, on April 20. Nine other suspects, including Booth’s brother Junius and the owner of Ford’s Theater, were jailed on suspicion of aiding the conspirators, but seven were soon released. Those facing trial before a military tribunal on May 1, 1865, included Arnold, Atzerodt, Herold, Dr. Mudd, O’Laughlen, Powell, Mary Surratt, and Edmund Spangler (a Ford’s Theater stagehand who briefly held Booth’s horse on April 14). All were convicted on June 30, with Atzerodt, Herold, Powell, and Surratt sentenced to die, and hanged in Washington on July 7. Arnold, Mudd, and O’Laughlen received life prison terms, and Spangler was sentence to six years. President Johnson pardoned Mudd and Spangler in 1869. Conspirator John Surratt escaped the original dragnet, fleeing through Canada to Europe, and on from there to Egypt, where a U.S. government agent nabbed him in November 1866. At his trial, in summer 1867, defense attorneys called four witnesses who claimed sightings of Surratt in Elmira, New York, between April 13 and 15, 1865. Fifteen prosecution witnesses placed him in Washington on the day of Lincoln’s murder, but confused jurors failed to reach a verdict. A mistrial was declared, and prosecutors declined to try the case a second time. Lincoln’s death effectively scuttled his plan for reintegration of the late Confederate states “with malice toward none,” sparking imposition of harsh terms that embittered Southern Democrats and spawned various terrorist groups opposed to “Radical” Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan chief among them. After 12 years of bloodshed, violence “redeemed” the South for single-party “home rule” by white supremacist Democrats, inaugurating the age of Jim Crow and another century of oppression for African Americans below the Mason–Dixon Line. Because Mary and John Surratt were Roman Catholics, conspiracy theories arose surrounding their church. Anti-Catholicism had found fertile soil in North America from the 16th century onward, exacerbated by the violently xenophobic “Know-Nothing” movement, active nationwide from 1845 until the outbreak of the Civil War. Details of the supposed Vatican/Jesuit plot were fine-tuned and expanded from 1865 onward by Charles Chiniquy, a Canadian priest born in 1809 and expelled from the church in 1858, after three years of acrimonious litigation against a prominent Catholic layman in Illinois. Abraham Lincoln served as Chiniquy’s attorney in that case, and Chiniquy accused Chicago’s bishop of secretly aiding the opposition. After his expulsion,

293

294

LINCOLN, ABR AHAM

Chiniquy became a Presbyterian, regaling audiences with claims that the Catholic Church was pagan and anti-Christian. After the Civil War and Lincoln’s death, he added allegations that Pope Pius IX had plotted both the war and the assassination, themes expanded in two books: Fifty Years in the “Church” of Rome and The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional. Chiniquy died in 1899, but his claims were resurrected by the 1920s Ku Klux Klan, kept alive through the 1960s by certain fundamentalist Protestant sects, and still circulate as “fact” on the Internet today. John Wilkes Booth, although not a Catholic, stands at the center of yet another Lincoln conspiracy theory. John Young, a seven-year-old witness to the murder at Ford’s Theatre, later moved to Michigan and met James Kelley, who once shared a dressing room with Booth as a member of the Richmond Theatre Company. Kelley, in turn, related the tale of a former slave who had served

DR. SAMUEL MUDD Debate persists to this day of Samuel Mudd’s complicity in the Lincoln assassination. Although members of Mudd’s family insist that Booth caught Mudd by surprise, arriving at the doctor’s home uninvited for treatment of his broken leg, authors James Swanson and Richard Steers Jr. claim that Mudd met Booth at least three times before the shooting at Ford’s Theater. They say that agents of the Confederate Secret Service first sent Booth to Mudd in November 1864, to aid his presidential kidnapping plot. A month later, Booth allegedly stayed at Mudd’s farm a second time, and Mudd supposedly traveled to Washington that same December, introducing Booth to Confederate agent John Surratt. At trial in 1865, George Atzerodt also testified that Booth sent supplies to Mudd in Maryland, in preparation for the abortive abduction. A search of Mudd’s home revealed one of Booth’s monogrammed boots, hidden in the doctor’s attic, with other incriminating evidence. Despite Mudd’s pardon in 1869, shame attached to his family, reputedly including the popular phrase “His name is mud (Mudd),” denoting someone in grave disfavor. (The Online Etymology Dictionary disagrees, however, reporting that use of the derogatory phrase dates from 1823, adapting a 1708 definition of “mud” to mean “a stupid twaddling fellow.”) Two feature films—The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936) and The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd (1980)—portray Mudd as an innocent victim of circumstance. More than a century after his conviction, successive presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan both wrote letters to the doctor’s grandson, Richard Mudd, expressing their belief that the physician committed no crime.

L I T V I N E N K O , A L E X A N D E R VA L T E R O V I C H

Booth’s brother Edwin, claiming that Lincoln’s killer escaped from the United States alive, while Sergeant Corbett shot and killed a look-alike, one James William Boyd. Booth fled to England, and from there to India, living out his days in Bombay (now Mumbai) as “John Wilkes.” In 1977, director James Conway released a film, The Lincoln Conspiracy, promoting that story and going further still—claiming that Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Chief of National Police Colonel Lafayette Baker, and various Northern congressmen conspired to kill Lincoln, thereby short-circuiting Lincoln’s plan of readmission for Confederate states on lenient terms. That film included photographs of Booth’s alleged mummified remains. NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries program echoed that conspiracy theme in an episode aired on September 25, 1991. Two years later, researchers sought to have Booth’s presumed remains exhumed from Baltimore’s Green Mount Cemetery for DNA testing, to confirm or refute his identity. The cemetery fought that move, resulting in a civil trial before Judge Joseph Kaplan in 1995. Kaplan denied the petition for exhumation, and an appellate court upheld that ruling in 1996. The debate continues. Further Reading Bishop, Jim. The Day Lincoln Was Shot. New York, Harper, 1955. Good, Timothy. We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts. Oxford: University Press of Mississippi, 1996. Kauffman, Michael. American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies. New York: Random House, 2004. Steers, Edward, and James Swanson. The Lincoln Assassination Encyclopedia. New York: Harper Perennial, 2010.

LITVINENKO, ALEXANDER VALTEROVICH (1962–2006) On November 1, 2006, Russian expatriate author Alexander Litvinenko—a former officer of both the Soviet KGB and the post-communist Federal Protective Service (FSO)—fell suddenly ill in London, England. Earlier that day, he had lunched with two other ex-KGB officers, Dmitri Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi, and an Italian acquaintance, attorney and self-styled nuclear waste expert Mario Scaramella. Their conversation included discussion of ongoing investigations into KGB infiltration of Italian politics and the October 2006 murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow. Litvinenko’s condition rapidly deteriorated, and he died in a London hospital on November 23. Afterward, pathologists attributed his death to radiation poisoning, induced by a lethal dose of polonium-210. Spokesmen for Scotland Yard declared that they were “100-percent sure who administered the poison, where and how,” but they declined to furnish further details, preserving their evidence in the

295

296

L I T V I N E N K O , A L E X A N D E R VA L T E R O V I C H

interest of some hypothetical future trial. Prime suspect Andrei Lugovoi escaped to Russia, and since his election to the Duma (Russian parliament) he is legally immune to extradition. Alexander Litvinenko was born in Voronezh, with conflicting reports citing his birth date as August 30 and December 4, 1962. At age 18 he was drafted into the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a now-defunct Soviet a paramilitary police force. He attended the Kirov Higher Command School from 1981 to 1985, graduating as a platoon commander. The KGB recruited him as an informant in 1986, and two years later Litvinenko officially joined the KGB’s Third Chief Directorate, Military Counter Intelligence, serving with that branch until 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the KGB officially disbanded. Litvinenko remained with the “new” agency, reborn as the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK), specializing in counterterrorist activities and infiltration of Russian “Mafia” groups (see sidebar). At the same time, he also continued to play an active military role during Russian campaigns in Chechnya and Dagestan. In 1997, Litvinenko was promoted to serve as a deputy chief of the FSB Directorate of Analysis and Suppression of Criminal Groups. Litvinenko later claimed that his disaffection with Russia began in December 1997, when he received orders to kill Boris Berezovsky, a businessman and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He stalled until March 1998, then warned Berezovsky, who went public with the claim and thus provoked a major scandal. The FSB dismissed Litvinenko, disbanded his unit, then jailed him for a month in 1999 on charges of “abusing duties.” Released on stipulation that he leave the country, Litvinenko moved to London, entering collaboration with MI6—Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service—at a reported wage of £2,000 per month. He became a naturalized British citizen in October 2006, and continued working with the government until his death. At the same time, he attracted death threats for his public statements and writings, condemning Russian president Vladimir Putin’s regime. In January 2007, the Polish news´ paper Dziennik Polska-Europa-Swiat reported that Litvinenko’s photograph was used for target practice at a training center for private paramilitary security forces in Balashikha, near Moscow. Two days after Litvinenko’s death, an article appeared under his byline in London’s Mail on Sunday, titled “Why I Believe Putin Wanted Me Dead.” It read, in part: this may be the time to say one or two things to the person responsible for my present condition. You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed. You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilised value. You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilised men and women. You may succeed

L I T V I N E N K O , A L E X A N D E R VA L T E R O V I C H

in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life. May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.

London’s Metropolitan Police investigated Litvinenko’s death, assisted by FBI agents and Interpol. Scientific equipment traced “three distinct polonium trails” in and out of London, left by Litvinenko, Dmitry Kovtun, and Andrei Lugovoi, respectively. Radioactivity levels indicated that Litvinenko had ingested the lethal material, and Kovtun and Lugovoi had handled it. Locations

RUSSIAN MAFIA Although membership in the historical Mafia is strictly limited to individuals of Italian descent, it is common practice to use the term “Mafia” for any crime syndicate, regardless of ethnic complexion. Thus, we read reports of an Albanian Mafia, Cuban Mafia, Black Mafia, and so on, with the “Russian Mafia”—or Russkaya Mafiya—ranked among the more notorious syndicates of modern times. Russia, like all other countries, has harbored a criminal underworld throughout its history, traditionally known as a bratva (“brotherhood”), composed of voˇr v zakone (“thieves in law”), with the present generation spawned in the Soviet Gulag network of prison labor camps. Some eight million convicts were released upon the death of dictator Josef Stalin in 1953, with hard-core gangsters establishing an unprecedented criminal class nationwide. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, competing crime syndicates have vastly increased their influence and have established lucrative outposts worldwide, involved in illegal gambling, prostitution and human trafficking, drug trafficking, and sale of black-market weapons, reportedly including “loose nukes” from postcommunist Eastern Bloc arsenals. Official opinions differ on the extent and organization of the Russian organized crime. Timur Lakhonin, head of Russia’s Interpol branch, said in December 2009, “Certainly, there is crime involving our former compatriots abroad, but there is no data suggesting that an organized structure of criminal groups comprising former Russians exists abroad.” Eight months later, French criminologist Alain Bauer disputed that view, calling the Russian Mafia “one of the best structured criminal organisations in Europe, with a quasi-military operation.” Worldwide, in 2010, Russian crime syndicates operated in at least 50 countries, with an estimated membership of 300,000. The largest single group, with some 5,000 identified members, is the Moscow-based Solntsevskaya Bratva, founded in 1985 by Boris Arshavin and Sergei Mikhailov.

297

298

L I U, H E N RY

cited included a hotel, a restaurant, a tavern, multiple taxi cabs, and British Airways commercial jet airliners. Further Reading Cowell, Alan. The Terminal Spy: A True Story of Espionage, Betrayal and Murder. New York: Random House, 2008. Goldfarb, Alex, and Marina Litvinenko. Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvienko and the Return of the KGB. New York: Free Press, 2007. Sixsmith, Martin. The Litvinenko File: The Life and Death of a Russian Spy. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007.

LIU, HENRY (1932–1984) On October 15, 1984, three assassins ambushed Taiwanese expatriate journalist Henry Liu in the garage of his home in Daly City, California, executing him with multiple close-range gunshots. Investigators were baffled until FBI agents found an audio tape recorded by gangster Chen Chi-li, aka “King Duck,” identified as head of Taiwan’s United Bamboo Gang. The tape blamed Vice Admiral Wang Hsi-ling, chief of Taiwan’s Military Intelligence Bureau, for ordering Liu’s murder, with direct approval from President Chiang Ching-kuo. Chen, Wang, and triggerman Wu Tun were convicted at trial in Taipei, receiving life sentences in August 1985, then were granted presidential clemency and freed in January 1991. Henry Liu was born in Jingjiang, mainland China, on December 7, 1932, and relocated to Taiwan in 1949, after the communist victory in that nation’s civil war drove Generalisimo Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party, or KMT) to the offshore refuge of Taiwan, officially renamed as the Republic of China. Chiang, like KMT founder Sun Yat-sen before him, was a member of the Triad underworld, running his government in exile as a kleptocracy buttressed by U.S. support in the Cold War. By the time Chiang died and was succeeded by son Chiang Ching-kuo in 1975, Liu—writing primarily as “Chiang Nan”—had earned a reputation as an outspoken critic of Taiwan’s one-party autocratic government. Exiled to the United States, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen and continued his attacks on the KMT with a critical biography of Chiang Ching-kuo, the project that provoked his murder. Chen Chi-li’s United Bamboo Gang, also known as the Bamboo Union, is the largest of Taiwan’s three Triad syndicates, recognized for its close ties to the Kuomintang, its members said to be motivated as much by right-wing politics as by profits from gambling, drug dealing, and other illegal activities. At trial in 1985, Chen testified that Vice Admiral Wang ordered Liu’s murder on grounds that Liu was a spy for the People’s Republic of China, offering $20,000 for the slaying, which Chen allegedly refused as a gesture of “patriotism.” Chen also

LONG, HUEY PIERCE, JR.

claimed—but failed to convince the court—that he ordered his gunmen to “teach Liu a lesson” without killing or crippling him, but the shooters got carried away in the moment. Jerome Cohen, a Harvard professor of law, attended that trial as a representative of Liu’s family, and later described Chen’s testimony as a “well-rehearsed performance” aimed at covering for higher-ranking KMT officials. When Chen, Wang, and Wu were tried in Taipei, another member of the execution party, Bamboo Union member Tung Kuei-sen was captured in California, acquitted on New York racketeering charges unrelated to Liu’s death, then convicted of the actual slaying in March 1988. Two months later, he received a sentence of 25 years to life for murder, plus two more years for use of a firearm in a felony. Confined at Pennsylvania’s Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, Tung was stabbed by other inmates on February 21, 1991, and died from his wounds on April 3. Chen Chi-li left Taipei for Cambodia in 1996, to evade further charges of organized crime activity. In July 2000, Cambodian police arrested him for illegal possession of firearms, but subsequently released him to live in peace on his 2,600-acre estate. Pancreatic cancer claimed his life in October 2007, and his corpse was flown home to Taipei, where fellow gang member Wu Tung organized a lavish funeral. Further Reading Kaplan, David. Fires of the Dragon. New York: Scribner, 1992. U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The Murder of Henry Liu. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985.

LONG, HUEY PIERCE, JR. (1893–1935) On September 8, 1935, Louisiana’s state legislature convened in special session to vote on a political redistricting bill. The bill, promoted by U.S. senator Huey Long, aimed to remove Benjamin Pavy—a longtime political opponent of Long’s—from his post as a district court judge. Debate over the bill was still ongoing at 9:20 P.M., when Dr. Carl Weiss, Judge Pavy’s son-in-law, approached Long in a hallway at the State Capitol. Weiss reportedly fired a pistol at Long, striking him once in the abdomen, whereupon Long’s bodyguards killed Weiss with 62 bullets. Long survived to reach a nearby hospital, but died from his wound two days later. At the time of his death, Huey Long was one of the most controversial figures in the United States. Born at Winnfield on August 30, 1893, he was expelled from high school in his junior year, then won a debating scholarship to Louisiana State University, but failed to attend because he could not afford textbooks. After several years as a traveling salesman, Long enrolled at Tulane

299

300

L O N G, H U E Y P I E RC E , J R .

Senator Huey Long’s 1935 assassination still spawns conspiracy theories. (Getty Images)

University Law School, completing its course of study in one year. Admitted to the bar in 1915, Long courted working-class clients and won renown by suing the Standard Oil Company for unfair business practices. Long entered politics in 1918, after being elected to the Louisiana’s Railroad Commission. His continuing attacks on Standard Oil rallied popular support, propelling him to chairmanship of the state’s Public Service Commission in 1922 and election as governor in 1928, campaigning on the slogan “Every man a king, but no one wears a crown.” Soon, he was dubbed “The Kingfish,” for his power in Louisiana politics. While condemning giant corporations and the wealthy “parasites” who ran them, Long used the governor’s office to enrich himself. Every state employee was required to pay a portion of his or her salary into Long’s political war chest—dubbed the “deduct box”—during election years. Long also approved placement of illegal slot machines in New Orleans and elsewhere, by arrangement with mobsters Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky, after Mayor Fiorello La Guardia had purged their New York City gambling operations. By the time voters sent Long to the U.S. Senate in 1932, he was a rich man in his own right and prepared to challenge the federal government. Long initially supported President Franklin Roosevelt’s (FDR) New Deal, but broke with the administration during summer 1933, promoting his own “Share

LONG, HUEY PIERCE, JR.

Our Wealth”—and, some said, paving the way for his own White House race in 1936. In the Senate, Long opposed FDR’s National Recovery Act as a “sellout” to big business, and led a three-week filibuster against the Banking Act of 1933 until amendments extended deposit insurance to state banks. Roosevelt retaliated with federal investigations of Louisiana election procedures and Long’s income taxes, resulting in several indictments, but the Kingfish remained untouchable until his murder. Following Long’s death, his family maintained control over Louisiana politics, with brother Earl serving as governor (1939–1940, 1948–1952, 1956–1960) and son Russell as U.S. senator (1948–1987). Long’s assassination, though officially solved, remains controversial. No autopsy was performed, despite requests from attending physician Edgar Hull, and allegations of conspiracy or cover-up persist. In a 1973 biography of Meyer Lansky, author Hank Messick claimed that the mobster—angry over Long’s demands for larger gambling payoffs—ordered physicians to “let him die.” A quarter-century later, Dr. Donald Pavy—a nephew of Long’s enemy, Judge Pavy—published an account claiming that Dr. Weiss only punched Long during their September 1935 encounter, whereupon Long’s troop of bodyguards killed Weiss and fatally wounded the Kingfish with wild gunfire, then planted a gun on Weiss in a posthumous frame-up. Long’s flamboyant life and murky death have prompted several fictional portrayals, most portraying Long-like characters under various pseudonyms. The first, Hamilton Basso’s Cinnamon Seed (1934), lampooned Long with satire and was followed by a posthumous sequel, Sun in Capricorn, eight years later. Between those novels, Long critic Sinclair Lewis published It Can’t Happen Here (1935), a novel penned with the avowed purpose of undermining Long’s presidential hopes in 1936. Fictionalized in that work as “President Berzelius Windrip,” Long’s character emulates tactics from then-powerful Nazi Germany, transforming the United States into a fascist dictatorship. Adria Locke Langley’s novel, A Lion is in the Streets (1945), reached the silver screen eight years later, with James Cagney’s starring as rabble-rousing politician “Hank Martin.” Robert Penn Warren won a Pulitzer Prize for his novel of corrupted idealist “Willie Stark.” All the King’s Men (1946), filmed under the same title in 1949 and 2006 (with an opera, Willie Stark, produced in 1981). Mystery novelist Max Allan Collins, having “solved” Anton Cermak’s murder in 1983, with True Detective, did the same for Longs in 1995, in Blood and Thunder. Meanwhile, sci-fi excursions into alternate history also feature Huey Long. Harry Turtledove’s American Empire trilogy (2001–2003) sees Long assassinated for refusing to cast his lot with the Confederate States of America. Barry N. Malzberg’s short story “Kingfish,” in the Alternate Presidents anthology (1992), permits Long to survive the 1935 attempt on his life, capture the White House in 1936, and conspire with ally John Nance Garner to kill Adolf Hitler in the early days of World War II.

301

302

L U M U M B A , PAT R I C E É M E RY

Further Reading Pavy, Donald. Accident and Deception: The Huey Long Shooting. New Iberia, LA: Cajun Publications, 1999. White Jr., Richard. Kingfish: The Reign of Huey P. Long. New York: Random House, 2006. Zinman, David. Who Killed the Kingfish? The Enduring Controversy over the Assassination of Huey Long. New York: Newsday, 1985.

LUMUMBA, PATRICE ÉMERY (1925–1961) In September 1960, after just three months of independence from Belgian colonial rule, the First Republic of the Congo faced a major crisis. President Joseph Kasa-Vubu dismissed Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, whereupon Lumumba declared the presidential office vacant and secured a vote of confidence from the senate. On September 14, 1960, army chief of staff Colonel Mobutu Sese Seko—aka Joseph Mobutu—led a military coup d’état supported by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), placing Lumumba under house arrest. He managed to escape, but was recaptured on December 1, after a failed attempt to raise an independent army of his own. Despite protests from the United Nations, Mobutu transported Lumumba to a military prison on December 3, then moved him to Katanga Province on January 17, 1961. That same night, Lumumba was shot by a firing squad, with former aides Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito. Lumumba’s corpse was then dismembered with a hacksaw, dissolved in sulfuric acid, and the remains were buried in an unmarked grave. His death was formally announced three weeks later, with a false claim that he had escaped from custody and was lynched by “outraged villagers.” Patrice Lumumba was born at Onalua, in the Kasai region of the thenBelgian Congo, on July 2, 1925. After graduating from a Catholic missionary school, he passed a one-year training course for post office employment, working as a postal clerk in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) and Stanleyville (now Kisangani). In 1955, he embarked on a three-week study tour in Belgium, then returned to face arrest on a charge of embezzling post office funds. Conviction in that case brought him a two-year prison sentence, commuted to one year upon repayment of the stolen cash. Released from custody in July 1956, Lumumba helped found the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC—Congolese National Movement) two years later, campaigning for Congolese independence from Belgium. By December 1958 he was the MNC’s president, but the group split in early 1959, with leftist elements following Lumumba, and rival Albert Kalonji led more moderate members into a new organization. Belgian authorities jailed Lumumba in October 1959, on charges of inciting a riot that claimed 30 lives. Sentenced to six months in prison, he was nonetheless released to attend January’s round-table

L U M U M B A , PAT R I C E É M E R Y

discussions in Brussels, charting the Congo’s future, after the MNC carried December’s local elections. That conference concluded on January 27, 1960, with the announcement of Congolese independence scheduled for June 30. Lumumba and the MNC triumphed in May’s national elections, with Lumumba declared prime minister on June 23, and Joseph Kasa-Vubu was slated to serve as president. On Independence Day, Belgian king Baudouin cautioned his former African subjects, “Don’t compromise the future with hasty reforms, and don’t replace the structures that Belgium hands over to you until you are sure you can do better . . . Don’t be afraid to come to us. We will remain by your side, give you advice.” Lumumba took a different view, telling his native audience, “For this independence of the Congo, even as it is celebrated today with Belgium, a friendly country with whom we deal as equal to equal, no Congolese worthy of the name will ever be able to forget that it was by fighting that it has been won, a day-to-day fight, an ardent and idealistic fight, a fight in which we were spared neither privation nor suffering, and for which we gave our strength and our blood. We are proud of this struggle, of tears, of fire, and of blood, to the depths of our being, for it was a noble and just struggle, and indispensable to put an end to the humiliating slavery which was imposed upon us by force.” A few days later, Lumumba unilaterally raised the pay of all government employees except those serving in the army, which remained under control of white Belgian officers. The reaction was immediate and hostile, with rebellions nationwide by soldiers who engaged in pillaging and mayhem. Meanwhile, on July 11, Katanga Province declared independence under Premier Moise Tshombe, backed by Belgium’s government and Union Minière du Haut Katanga, a Belgian mining company. Prime Minister Lumumba sought military and humanitarian aid from the Soviet Union, which encouraged the Joseph Mobutu and the CIA to move against him as an alleged communist. Conspiracy theories surround Lumumba’s assassination. Most sources agree that the execution was carried out under direction of a Belgian officer, Captain Julien Gat. Some accounts claim that Lumumba was first buried by a CIA agent, but Belgian police commissioner Gerard Soete later admitted exhuming the corpse, with his brother’s help, dismembering and dissolving it before it was reburied at a site near the Rhodesian border. In 1975, the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities reported that CIA director Allen Dulles had ordered Lumumba’s assassination as “an urgent and prime objective,” after President Dwight Eisenhower said “something to the effect that Lumumba should be eliminated.” A later report, issued in August 2000 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, agreed that the CIA had conspired to murder Lumumba, but denied active participation by the agency in his assassination.

303

304

L U M U M B A , PAT R I C E É M E RY

The following year, an investigating commission in Belgium declared that “certain members of the Belgian government and other Belgian figures have a moral responsibility in the circumstances which led to the death of Lumumba.” Although it found “no document nor witness” proving that the government “or any of its members gave the order to physically eliminate Lumumba,” it acknowledged that it was “manifestly clear that the government was unconcerned with Mr. Lumumba’s physical integrity.” In February 2002, the Belgian government formally apologized, confessing a “moral responsibility” and “an irrefutable portion of responsibility in the events that led to the death of Lumumba.” Finally, in July 2006, the U.S. government declassified CIA documents confirming that the agency had hoped to kill Lumumba, purchasing a vial of poison

CIA “EXECUTIVE ACTION” “Executive action” was a term adopted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency from the early 1950s through the mid-1970s as a euphemism for assassination, specifically applied to killing foreign heads of state such as Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba, and Ngo Dinh Diem. In the case of lesservalue targets, murder was often described as “termination with extreme prejudice.” President Gerald Ford banned state-sponsored murder on February 18, 1976, with Executive Order (E.O.) 11905, stating that “No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.” President James Carter strengthened and expanded that ban on January 24, 1978, with E.O. 12036, closing loopholes in E.O. 11905 by stating that “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” President Ronald Reagan revised that language slightly on December 4, 1981, with E.O. 12333, stating that “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” President Bill Clinton relaxed that proscription of murder in February 1998, with regard to targets formally labeled as terrorists. On September 14, 2001, Congress passed a joint resolution titled Authorization for Use of Military Force, granting the president blanket permission to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against those whom he determined had “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the September 11th attacks, or who harbored said persons or groups. On April 30, 2012, John Brennan, assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, publicly acknowledged for the first time that unmanned drone aircraft had been used repeatedly on orders from President Barack Obama, to assassinate presumed members of the al-Qaeda terrorist group abroad.

L U W U M , J A N A N I J A K A L I YA

in September 1960, with intent to place it on the prime minister’s toothbrush. That plan fell through, as did similar plots against Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and no ultimate verdict was reached concerning the extent of CIA culpability in Lumumba’s murder or disposal of his body. Six years before those revelations, Haitian filmmaker and political activist Raoul Peck produced Lumumba (2000), depicting events in the Congo during 1960–1961. Ongoing turmoil in the Democratic Republic of the Congo required Peck to shoot the film in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, with French actor Eriq Ebouaney playing the part of Lumumba and Alex Descas cast as rival Joseph Mobutu. Further Reading Heinz, G., and H. Donnay. Lumumba: The Last Fifty Days. New York: Grove Press, 1970. Kanza, Thomas. Conflict in the Congo: The Rise and Fall of Lumumba. New York: Penguin, 1972. McKown, Robin. Lumumba: A Biography. London: Doubleday, 1969.

LUWUM, JANANI JAKALIYA (1922–1977) In early 1977, Janani Luwum—archbishop of the Church of Uganda—delivered a note to dictator Idi Amin, protesting Amin’s policy of arbitrary executions and the disappearance of political opponents. On February 16, Luwum was arrested with Charles Oboth Ofumbi (Uganda’s minister of the interior) and Erinayo Wilson Oryema (minister of land, housing and physical planning). Amin convened a trial in Kampala the same day, featuring “confessions” from several accused traitors, implicating the trio in a plot to depose Amin, in favor of ex-president Milton Obote. On February 17, Radio Uganda announced that all three defendants had died in car crash while being transported to a police interrogation center, supposedly after they tried to escape by overpowering the driver of their vehicle. Minister of Health Henry Kyemba later wrote that “The bodies were bullet-riddled. The archbishop had been shot through the mouth and at least three bullets in the chest. The ministers had been shot in a similar way but one only in the chest and not through the mouth. Oryema had a bullet wound through the leg.” Subsequent testimony claimed the three were beaten and shot at an army barracks, with Time magazine declaring: “Some reports even had it that Amin himself had pulled the trigger, but Amin angrily denied the charge, and there were no first-hand witnesses.” Janani Luwum was born in the village of Mucwini, in the Kitgum district of northern Uganda, bordering Sudan, in 1922. He attended Boro Boro Teacher Training College, in the Lira district, and obtained employment teaching at a primary school. Luwum converted to Christianity in 1948, enrolled at the Church of Uganda’s Buwalasi Theological College the following year, and was assigned to St. Philip’s Church in Gulu by 1950. Ordination as a deacon followed in

305

306

L U W U M , J A N A N I J A K A L I YA

1953, with Luwum’s elevation to the priesthood in 1954. After seven years of service in the Nile Diocese and the Diocese of Mbale, he was consecrated as a bishop in 1961. Five years later, church leaders appointed Luwum to serve as archbishop of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi, thus becoming one of the most influential clergymen in Africa. When Idi Amin staged a military coup in January 1971, deposing President Obote, Archbishop Luwum stood in opposition to the dictator’s policies of repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings, and pervasive corrupUgandan Archbishop Janani Luwum, killed on or- tion. Estimates of Amin’s final death toll range from 100,000 ders from dictator Idi Amin. (Getty Images) to 500,000 or more, including many claims that Amin himself took part in executions and indulged in cannibalism. Despite that reputation and the global protests it evoked, Amin served as chairman of the Organization of African Unity during 1975–1976, and Uganda was (rather ironically) appointed to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 1977. A year later, in October 1978, Amin’s attempt to annex the Kagera region of northwestern Tanzania sparked a war that claimed an estimated 3,000 lives by mid-April 1979. Despite reinforcements from Libya, Amin’s troops were driven out of Tanzania, and the Tanzanian army rolled on to capture Kampala. Amin fled to Libya, and later to Saudi Arabia, where he remained until his death in August 2003. Amin’s departure touched off a struggle for power in Uganda, climaxed with Milton Obote’s return to the presidency in December 1980. Further Reading Foden, Giles. The Last King of Scotland. New York: Vintage, 1999. Smith, George. Ghosts of Kampala: The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin. Worthing, West Sussex: Littlehampton, 1980.

M MADERO GONZÁLEZ, FRANCISCO IGNACIO (1873–1913) On February 18, 1913, Mexican general José Victoriano Huerta Márquez staged a coup d’état against President Francisco Madero, arresting both Madero and his brother Gustavo, along with Vice President Pino Suarez. Over the course of that afternoon, Gustavo Madero was tortured by Huerta’s soldiers, then shot and buried in an unmarked grave. President Madero and Suarez initially refused to sign their resignations, as Huerta demanded, then agreed on February 19, after they were promised safe passage out of Mexico with their families. Huerta assumed the presidency on February 20, while Madero and Suarez remained in prison, and then executed both hostages near midnight on February 21. Francisco Madero González was born in Coahuila on October 30, 1873, to one of Mexico’s richest families, educated at a Jesuit college, then at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris, founded in 1881 by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry. From France, he moved on to study agriculture at the University of California in Berkeley. At age 20, he assumed management duties at his family’s ranch in San Pedro, Coahuila, introducing cotton as a cash crop, while installing irrigation systems and constructing plants to manufacture ice and soap. At the same time, he earned a reputation for philanthropy, building rural schools, hospitals, and community kitchens. Madero entered politics in 1904, disgusted with the authoritarian tactics of longtime president Porfirio Díaz. Madero founded the Benito Juárez Democratic Club in San Pedro that year, narrowly losing a municipal election race, but continued opposition to Díaz through his own newspaper, El Demócrata, and a satirical magazine, El Mosco (“The Fly”). An ardent spiritualist, Madero published a best-selling book—The Presidential Succession of 1910—in 1908, citing the supposed claim of spirits from beyond that Díaz’s dictatorship had sickened Mexico. He noted that Díaz initially campaigned on a platform of “No Re-election” in 1870, but after losing that campaign to incumbent Benito Juárez had, in fact, had himself been elected to the presidency three times—in 1876, 1877, and 1884. Now, with Díaz still in office, Madero claimed the “No Re-election” slogan as his own, campaigning to unseat the dictator. In 1910, as founder and presidential candidate of the Anti-Reelectionist Party, Madero campaigned nationwide, warning supporters that Díaz would

308

M ADERO GONZ ÁLEZ, FR ANCISCO IGNACIO

not leave office peacefully. That prophecy proved accurate in June, as Díaz jailed Madero and 5,000 other members of his party, subsequently claiming victory and a fourth term by an electoral vote of 196 to 187. Madero escaped from custody on October 4, 1910, and fled to San Antonio, Texas, where he hatched the Plan of San Luis Potosí, calling for Mexico’s citizens to rise in force against Díaz on November 20. So began the Mexican Revolution, tacitly supported by U.S. president William Howard Taft. Madero’s forces were led by commanders including Francisco “Pancho” Villa and Emiliano Zapata, expanding to incite rebellions in 18 of Mexico’s 31 states by April 1911. A month later, following a decisive victory by rebel troops at Ciudad Juárez, Díaz resigned and ceded control of the country to interim president Francisco León de la Barra. Madero won the next presidential election, taking office on November 6, 1911, and began dismantling the machinery of dictatorship. Ironically, after he instituted freedom of the press, Madero faced a storm of criticism for his handling of several regional uprisings during 1911–1912, prompting brother Gustavo Madero to complain that “the newspapers bite the hand that took off their muzzle.” One rebellion, led by ex-general Pascual Orozco in Chihuahua, brought Victoriano Huerta to the forefront of Madero’s army after General José González Salas committed suicide. Huerta suppressed the uprising in September 1912, driving Orozco into exile, but their relationship soured when guerrilla leader Pancho Villa refused to take orders from Huerta. Huerta ordered Villa’s execution, but Madera commuted the sentence, leaving bad blood between them. A month later, in October 1912, Félix Díaz—a nephew of Madero’s deposed predecessor—led a mutiny in Veracruz “to reclaim the honor of the army trampled by Madero.” Captured and condemned, Díaz was spared by commutation of his sentence from Mexico’s Supreme Court, leaving him embittered and determined to strike back. By early 1913, Huerta and Díaz were joined by U.S. ambassador Henry Lane Wilson in a plot to depose Madero, culminating in the actions of La Decena Tragica—the “Ten Tragic Days” of February. Today, we know that Ambassador Wilson began predicting Madero’s downfall on February 11, wiring President William Howard Taft for authority to force negotiations between the contending rivals. When British, Spanish, and German diplomats counseled peace, Lane advised them that President Taft “was visibly embarrassed and endeavored to fix the responsibility on General Félix Díaz.” Wilson changed his tune on February 13, informing Secretary of State Philander Knox that “Public opinion, both Mexican and foreign, holds the Federal Government responsible for these conditions.” Two days later, Wilson and Germany’s ambassador visited the presidential palace, hoping “to confer with General Huerta” privately, but as Wilson complained, “upon arrival, much to our regret, we were taken to see the President.” By February 16, Wilson had

M A H E R PA S H A , A H M E D

received a covert message from Huerta “saying that he expected to take steps tonight towards terminating the situation.” By what means? According to Wilson’s next memo, “Huerta has sent his messenger to say that I may expect some action which will remove Madero from power at any moment, and that plans were fully matured. . . . I asked no questions and made no comment beyond requesting that no lives be taken— except by due process of law.” By Monday night, the 17th, Wilson was predicting Madero’s arrest by noon on Tuesday—which, in fact, occurred. Following the murders on February 22, Wilson washed his hands of the matter, claiming it “would be an impertinence for a foreign power to demand an investigation into a purely domestic matter.” Then, in a cruel twist, he added, “In fact, the person really responsible for Madero’s death was his wife. She was the one to blame. Madero had to be eliminated. By her telegram to the commander at Veracruz, she made it impossible to allow him to leave the Capital.” Mexico’s revolution continued for another seven years. President Huerta, although supported by Germany, was driven from office and into exile by July 1914. Successor Francisco Carvajal lasted one day short of a month, then ceded power to Venustiano Carranza, who restored a measure of peace and promoted a new constitution prior to his assassination in May 1920. Sporadic violence—endemic to Mexico then, as today—continued under successors Adolfo de la Huerta (June–November 1920), Álvaro Obregón (December 1920 to November 1924), and Plutarco Elías Calles (December 1924 to November 1928). Further Reading Gonzales, Michael. The Mexican Revolution: 1910–1940. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002. Krauze, Enrique. Mexico: Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810–1996. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. McLynn, Frank. Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2000. Ross, Stanley. Francisco I. Madero: Apostle of Mexican Democracy. Whitefish, MT: Literary Licensing, 2011.

MAHER PASHA, AHMED (1888–1945) On February 24, 1945, Egyptian prime minister Ahmed Maher Pasha addressed the Chamber of Deputies in Cairo’s Parliament building, reading a royal declaration of war against the Axis Powers, signed by King Farouk. From there, he moved on toward the senate, to repeat the reading, but while passing through the Pharaonic Hall he was accosted by 28-year-old Mustafa Essawy. Drawing a pistol, Essawy shot Maher three times in the stomach at point-blank, inflicting

309

310

M A H E R PA S H A , A H M E D

wounds that claimed the prime minister’s life a half-hour later. Captured at the scene, dressed in a “dapper” black shirt and red necktie, Essawy was variously described in press reports as a “pro-Nazi lawyer” and a “veterinary student,” interned during 1940 for unspecified pro-German activities. Later reports speculated that he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood—the target of a fatwa declared by Prime Minister Maher in 1944—but prior to his execution by hanging, in September 1945, Essawy admitted membership in the Wafd (“ Delegation ” ) Party, a group opposed to dynastic rule and favoring a constitutional monarchy. Details of Ahmed Maher Pasha’s early life are sparse. He was born in 1888, and by the early 1920s he was serving as Egypt’s minister of education, appointed by King Fuad I. Maher had vacated that post by May 1925, when British colonial authorities detained him as a suspect in the November 1924 assassination of Sir Lee Oliver Fitzmaurice Stack, governor-general of AngloEgyptian Sudan, but Maher was not among the eight defendants subsequently convicted and hanged for that crime. In 1937, Maher was a member of Egypt’s senate, elevated that December to lead King Farouk I’s royal cabinet. The move provoked tension when Farouk rejected the cabinet’s nomination of a senate candidate to replace Maher, choosing one of his own. By August 1939, Maher was installed as minister of finance, charging members of the rival Wafd Party with libel after they accused him of corruption. King Farouk named Maher as prime minister on October 10, 1944, whereupon Maher declared his fatwa against hostile Wafdists. Striving for neutrality, on February 6, 1945, Maher announced that Egypt would not tolerate “any airfield belonging to any foreign power on her soil,” but his attitude toward the Allies soon changed after meetings with U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill, resulting in his assassination. Maher’s state funeral, on February 26, 1945, featured one of the longest processions ever assembled in Cairo, including Indian, British, South African, and U.S. troops in full dress uniform. His successor as prime minister, Mahmoud Fahmi an-Nukrashi Pasha, served until December 1948, when he was murdered in his office by a 21-year-old Muslim Brotherhood member disguised as a policeman. Ahmed Maher Pasha’s grandson, Ahmad Maher, served as Egypt’s foreign minister from 2001 to 2004. Another grandson, Aly Maher, held various posts including service as Egypt’s ambassador to France, secretary general of the Arab Thought Foundation, director of the Institute for Peace Studies (2006–2008), and as an officer of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (2008 to present). Further Reading Flower, Raymond. Napoleon to Nasser: The Story of Modern Egypt. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2002.

MAÏNASSARA, IBRAHIM BARÉ

Vatikiotis, P. J. The History of Modern Egypt: From Muhammad Ali to Mubarak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.

MAÏNASSARA, IBRAHIM BARÉ (1949–1999) On April 9, 1999, President Ibrahim Maïnassara attempted to board a helicopter in the capital city of Niamey. While he was still on the tarmac, gunfire erupted from his presidential guards and killed him instantly. Prime Minister Ibrahim Assane Mayaki called the shooting a “tragic accident,” while trying to dissolve the National Assembly and suspend all political activity. Former diplomats from Niger, exiled to Burkina Faso, claimed Maïnassara was killed to prevent him from fleeing the country. Resistance blocked Mayaki’s dissolution of the legislature, so he then announced that Niger be under military rule until a new prime minister was chosen to restore “national unity.” France quickly severed ties to Niger—once part of colonial French West Africa—and the United States cut off foreign aid to the junta. Two days after Maïnassara’s death, reputed coup leader Daouda Malam Wanké succeeded him president, vowing to hold elections by year’s end. Ibrahim Maïnassara was born at Dogondoutchi, in the Dosso region of southwestern Niger, on May 9, 1949. He was 12 years old when Niger achieved independence in 1961, under the one-party rule of President Hamani Diori. Maïnassara pursued a military career, benefiting from that choice in 1974, when catastrophic drought and public charges of corruption sparked a military coup, replacing Diori with a military junta under Colonel Seyni Kountché. Kountché died from a brain tumor, in November 1987, whereupon new political parties and civic groups rose to promote a revised constitution. A “caretaker government” took reign in November 1991. Parliamentary elections held in January 1995 placed a mutually hostile president and prime minister in charge of Niger’s government, compelled to coexist. Three months later, Maïnassara was promoted to serve as army chief of staff and began plotting his own seizure of power. He overthrew the Third Republic on January 7, 1996, and ruled Niger until his death. Maïnassara promulgated a new constitution, approved by referendum in May 1996. Two months later, 52 percent of Niger’s voters chose him as their president, ostensibly, although outside observers called the election a sham, exemplified by the arrest of four opposing presidential candidates. Local elections in February 1999 saw opposition parties win a majority over Maïnassara’s National Union of Independents for Democratic Renewal, whereupon Niger’s Supreme Court voided most of those results. Protests against that ruling were scheduled for the day Maïnassara was assassinated in Niamey. President Wanké drafted yet another constitution, adopted by referendum in July 1999, which granted amnesty to all participants in his coup d’état and

311

312

MALCOLM X

Maïnassara’s 1996 rebellion. That amnesty suspended ongoing investigations of Maïnassara’s murder, prompting widespread allegations of a cover-up. Still, Wanké kept his promise, holding elections in December 1999 and ceding power to successor Mamadou Tandja without a fight. Further Reading Kashi, Ed. Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta. New York: PowerHouse Books, 2010. Obi, Cyril, and Siri Aas Rustad, eds. Oil and Insurgency in the Niger Delta: Managing the Complex Politics of Petroviolence. London: Zed Books, 2011.

MALCOLM X (1925–1965) On February 21, 1965, Muslim minister Malcolm X prepared to address a gathering of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) at Upper Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom. Some 400 persons were present as Malcolm approached the podium, but before he could speak, a man in the audience shouted, “Nigger, get your hand outta my pocket!” A puff of smoke erupted and a scuffle began, and while Malcolm’s bodyguards moved to control it, three men rushed the dais. One fired a sawed-off shotgun at Malcolm, while the other two blazed away with pistols, striking him 21 times in the chest, left shoulder, arms and legs. Malcolm survived to reach Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, but was pronounced dead at 3:30 P.M. Members of the audience seized one shooter, Talmadge Hayer (aka Thomas Hagan), beating him before police could intervene, and witnesses identified two other gunmen as Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson. All three belonged to the Nation of Islam (NOI), a religious sect widely known as Black Muslims. At trial Hayer/Hagen admitted the shooting, while denying that Butler and Johnson were his accomplices. Jurors convicted all Black nationalist Malcolm X, murdered by Nation three, resulting in life prison of Islam gunmen in 1965. (Associated Press) terms.

MALCOLM X

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska. His father, Earl Little, was a transplanted Georgia native, a Baptist lay minister, and an outspoken admirer of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association, a Pan-African movement that encouraged black Americans to seek freedom in the homeland of their ancestors. According to Malcolm’s autobiography, harassment by the racist Ku Klux Klan drove his family from Nebraska to Wisconsin, then to Lansing, Michigan, where pressure continued from Klansmen and from members of a spin-off faction, the Black Legion. Malcolm’s father accused Black Legion members of burning the family’s home in 1929. Two years later, when Earl Little was struck and killed by a streetcar in Lansing, Malcolm claimed Black Legion members had pushed him onto the tracks. Years later, Malcolm also wrote that white supremacists had murdered three of his paternal uncles. Malcolm’s mother suffered a mental collapse in 1938, when her presumed fiancé discovered she was pregnant and left her to fend for herself. Louise Little spent the next 24 years in a Michigan state hospital, her children scattered to various foster homes, until Malcolm and his siblings could afford to support her themselves. Meanwhile, Malcolm excelled in junior high school, but dropped out after a white teacher told him that practicing law was “no realistic goal for a nigger.” Settled in New York City’s Harlem ghetto by 1943, he survived in a criminal milieu by pimping, gambling, robbery and drug dealing. Faced with the prospect of military conscription during World War II, he avoided service by telling his draft board that he steal guns and “kill crackers.” Shifting his focus to Boston in 1945, Malcolm embarked on a series of burglaries targeting affluent white homes. Police nabbed him after he left a stolen watch for repair at a jewelry shop, resulting in imposition of a 10-year prison term in February 1946. At Boston’s Charlestown State Prison, Malcolm met John Bembry, a self-educated inmate who impressed Malcolm with his command of English and the respect it evoked. Encouraged by a brother on the outside, Malcolm studied the NOI, adopting its tenets in 1948 and discarding his “slave” surname in favor of an “X” by 1950. Paroled in August 1952, he visited NOI leader Elijah Muhammad in Chicago, and in June 1953 was named assistant minister of the sect’s Temple Number One in Detroit, Michigan. Further service in Boston and Philadelphia saw Malcolm promoted to lead Harlem’s Temple Number Seven by May 1954. Immensely popular with NOI audiences, promoting the group’s doctrine that blacks are Earth’s “original people, whereas whites are “grafted blue-eyed devils,” Malcolm established new temples in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Georgia during 1955. By then, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was also interested in his activities, initiating surveillance on orders from Director J. Edgar Hoover in 1953. A notorious police brutality case from Harlem brought

313

314

MALCOLM X

Malcolm to national public attention in April 1957, whereupon the New York City Police Department (NYPD) also initiated surveillance of Malcolm and the NOI. By July 1959, when he was prominently featured in a television documentary on the Black Muslims, titled “The Hate That Hate Produced,” Malcolm had begun to call himself Malcolm Shabazz or Malik el-Shabazz, though most admirers still referred to him as Malcolm X. FBI/NYPD fears of Malcolm’s possible communist leanings spiked in September 1960, when he led a delegation welcoming Cuban leader Fidel Castro to Harlem, during Castro’s visit to the United Nations. Malcolm remained the most visible face of the NOI through 1963, a circumstance that placed him in stark contrast to pacifist civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm himself emphasized the difference between their approaches to black liberation, branding King and his allies as “stooges,” mocking King’s August 1963 March on Washington as “the farce on Washington.” In that instance, Malcolm expressed dismay that so many blacks were roused by a protest “run by whites in front of a statue of a president who has been dead for a hundred years and who didn’t like us when he was alive.” In December 1963, asked to comment on the slaying of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm shocked many whites by saying that “chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they’ve always made me glad.” The public outcry against that statement—and, some said, personal jealousy over Malcolm’s growing popularity within the NOI—prompted Elijah Muhammad to forbid Malcolm from speaking publicly for 90 days. Malcolm initially accepted the disciplinary order, then changed his mind at the end of his “sentence,” announcing his break with the NOI on March 8, 1964. Although still a committed Muslim himself, Malcolm said the NOI had “gone as far as it can” based on strict religious doctrines. Instead, he hoped to “heighten the political consciousness” of African Americans with a new movement, his OAAU. J. Edgar Hoover, predictably, penned memos to his staff describing the OAAU as a threat to U.S. national security, launching a campaign of illegal harassment designed to “prevent the rise of a messiah” from black America. On March 26, 1964, Malcolm and Dr. King attended Senate hearings on a pending civil rights bill, then emerged to hold a joint press conference—their first and only meeting. In an April speech, titled “The Ballot or the Bullet,” Malcolm urged black Americans to register as voters and use their electoral power to effect meaningful change. That same month, Malcolm converted to Sunni Islam and embarked on a pilgrimage to Mecca, required by sharia law of every Muslim who is able. That journey soon evolved into a tour of Africa, including visits to Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Morocco, Nigeria, Tanganykia (now Tanzania), Senegal, and Sudan. By the time he returned to New York, in November 1964, Malcolm had met every African leader of consequence and had established himself as a global political figure.

MALCOLM X

Meanwhile, tension increased between Malcolm and the NOI. Even before their rift, in February 1964, a leader of Harlem’s Temple Number Seven ordered a bombing of Malcolm’s car. A member of the NOI’s paramilitary arm, the Fruit of Islam, wired an explosive charge to the vehicle, but it failed to detonate. The following month, on March 23, Elijah Muhammad told Boston minister Louis X (now Louis Farrakhan) that “hypocrites like Malcolm should have their heads cut off.” An April issue of the sect’s newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, featured a cartoon of Malcolm’s severed head. On July 9, NOI spokesman John Ali declared that “anyone who opposes the Honorable Elijah Muhammad puts their life in jeopardy.” September’s issue of Ebony magazine ran a photo of Malcolm guarding his home with a rifle, as a result of incessant death threats that he blamed on the NOI. FBI agents kept track of the threats against Malcolm through illegal wiretaps. On June 8, 1964, a caller warned Malcolm’s wife to “tell him he’s as good as dead.” Four days later, an FBI informant told the bureau that “Malcolm X is going to be bumped off.” One week before Malcolm’s murder, still-unidentified arsonists burned his family’s home to the ground. Despite the public NOI threats, however, during the winter of 1963–1964 Malcolm told close friends that he thought “someone else”—perhaps from the U.S. government—was responsible for the harassment. Reactions to Malcolm’s assassination varied dramatically. Some 30,000 persons viewed his body while it lay in state at Harlem’s Unity Funeral Home, and his funeral drew many of the nation’s highest-ranking black civil rights leaders and celebrities on February 27, 1965. (Dr. King did not attend, but sent his condolences by telegram to Malcolm’s widow.) Actor/activist Ossie Davis delivered Malcolm’s eulogy before live television cameras, calling him “our shining black prince.” The white press, meanwhile—including many reporters from J. Edgar Hoover’s private list of “friendly” journalists—reviled Malcolm’s memory. The New York Times condemned Malcolm posthumously as “an extraordinary and twisted man” who “turn[ed] many true gifts to evil purpose,” declaring that his life had been “strangely and pitifully wasted.” Elijah Muhammad, speaking from Chicago, ironically proclaimed that “Malcolm X got just what he preached,” while insisting, “We didn’t want to kill Malcolm and didn’t try to kill him. We know such ignorant, foolish teachings would bring him to his own end.” Allegations of conspiracy in Malcolm’s murder were inevitable. The New York Times itself spawned one, reporting the arrest of four suspects in its early coverage of the shooting, dropping one without explanation from later editions. Who was the fourth man, some readers asked, and what had become of him? Declassification of FBI documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealed the bureau’s long surveillance of Malcolm, and raised questions about its failure to protect him. Other prime suspects included the NYPD’s Bureau of Special Services—a “Red squad” that worked closely with the FBI

315

316

MALCOLM X

and emulated Hoover’s outlaw tactics—and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, known to conduct (or at least attempt) assassinations of nonwhite “Third World” leaders. Always, though, suspicion circled back toward the NOI. Malcolm had described sect spokesman John Ali as his “archenemy” within the NOI, and further investigation revealed that Ali met with convicted assassin Talmadge Hayer the night before Malcolm’s slaying. Meanwhile, during 1977–1978, Hayer filed two sworn affidavits naming four members of the NOI’s Temple Number 25 in Newark, New Jersey, as his accomplices in the assassination. Wilbur McKinley, he said, had caused the initial diversion by shouting and detonating a smoke bomb. William Bradley fired the shotgun at Malcolm, and Hayer and one Leon Davis fired pistols. Another NOI member, Benjamin Thomas, helped plan the killing but did not join in the shooting. Louis Farrakhan, accused by Malcolm’s widow and children, seemed to take responsibility in 1993, when he told an NOI audience, “Was Malcolm your traitor or ours? And if we dealt with him like a nation deals with a traitor, what the hell business is it of yours? A nation has to be able to deal with traitors and cutthroats and turncoats.” Seven years later, Farrakhan sounded more moderate

NATION OF ISLAM The Nation of Islam (NOI) was founded in Detroit, in July 1930, by Wallace Dodd Ford, alias Wallace Fard and Wallace Fard Muhammad. An exconvict who served three years for drug dealing in California, Ford was described in 1920 Census rolls as a white immigrant from New Zealand, but he sometimes claimed to hail from Afghanistan. After several disputes with Detroit police, Ford vanished forever in July 1934. NOI spokesmen claim he is still alive aboard the “Mother Plane,” a spaceship described in the biblical book of Ezekiel. Ford taught—and the NOI believes—that Earth is 76 trillion years old, populated solely by blacks until an evil scientist called Yakub “grafted” other races from them 6,600 years ago. Committed to racial separatism, the NOI held meetings with the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party in the 1960s, supporting segregation. Various NOI spokesmen—notably Louis Farrakhan—have also denounced Jews in terms more familiar from white racist hate groups. In 1995, Farrakhan led a “Million Man March” on Washington, D.C., promoting African American solidarity. At least 400,000 attended that rally, making it the largest gathering of its kind in U.S. history. Membership estimates in the early 21st century range from 10,000 to 50,000.

M A R AT, J E A N - PA U L

on the TV program 60 Minutes, saying, “I may have been complicit in words that I spoke. I acknowledge that and regret that any word that I have said caused the loss of life of a human being.” No charges were filed against the NOI suspects named in Hayer’s sworn affidavits. Norman 3X Butler (now Muhammad Abdul Aziz) was paroled in 1985 and assumed leadership of the NOI’s Harlem mosque in 1998. Thomas 15X Johnson (now Khalil Islam) abandoned the NOI while imprisoned and became a Sunni Muslim, winning parole in 1987. Talmadge Hayer (now Mujahid Halim) was released from custody in 2010. The OAAU, deprived of Malcolm’s guiding hand, survived briefly with his half-sister at the helm, then dissolved due to declining membership. Further Reading Breitman, George, Herman Potter, and Baxter Smith. The Assassination of Malcolm X. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1976. Carson, Clayborne. Malcolm X: The FBI File. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1991. Cone, James. Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991. Evanzz, Karl. The Judas Factor: The Plot to Kill Malcolm X. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1992. Friedly, Michael. Malcolm X: The Assassination. New York: One World, 1992. Goldman, Peter. The Death and Life of Malcolm X. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979. Lincoln, C. Eric. The Black Muslims in America. Boston: Beacon Press, 1961. Lomax, Louis. To Kill a Black Man: The Shocking Parallel in the Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Los Angeles: Holloway House, 1968.

MARAT, JEAN-PAUL (1743–1793) On July 13, 1793, French journalist and politician Jean-Paul Marat was relaxing in the bath at his home in Paris, when an unexpected visitor arrived. The caller, Charlotte Corday from Caen, was a member of the Girondist faction in the ongoing French Revolution, amenable to toppling the monarchy but resistant to upsetting the entire social order through policies advocated by Marat and his more radical allies. Posing as a hard-core revolutionist, Corday told Marat’s wife that she possessed critical information on the whereabouts of fugitive Girondists. Admitted to Marat’s bathroom, where a makeshift desk had been arranged over the tub, Corday spoke briefly with Marat, discussing revolutionary plans to execute French royalists, then drew a knife from her corset and stabbed him in the throat, severing his carotid artery. At trial, where she was condemned to execution on the guillotine, Corday told her prosecutors, “I killed one man to save 100,000.”

317

318

M A R A T, J E A N - P A U L

Jean-Paul Marat was born at Boudry, in the former Prussian principality of Neuchâtel (now part of Switzerland), on May 24, 1743. He studied medicine in Paris without obtaining a degree, and moved to London in 1765, where he practiced as an unlicensed physician, simultaneously publishing essays on politics and philosophy. Five years later, while working as a veterinarian in Newcastle upon Tyne, Marat wrote Chains of Slavery, subtitled A Work in which the Clandestine and Villainous Attempts of Princes to Ruin Liberty Are Pointed Out, and the Dreadful Scenes of DesFrench journalist/politician Jean-Paul Marat, potism Disclosed. At the same stabbed while bathing by Charlotte Corday. (Al- time, he pursued medical studfredo Dagli Orti/The Art Archive/Corbis) ies, and published an essay on gonorrhea that earned him an honorary medical degree from Scotland’s University of St. Andrews in June 1775. Back in Paris by 1777, Marat found employment as personal physician to King Louis XVI’s younger brother (later King Charles X). From that exalted post, Marat soon acquired more royal patients, all the while continuing his scientific research and political writing, the latter including demands for an overhaul of the French judicial system, incorporating 12man juries and a common mode of capital punishment for all condemned inmates, regardless of social standing. After nine years at court, in April 1786, Marat resigned his royal appointment to pursue full-time scientific research, correspondence, and meetings with U.S. inventor Benjamin Franklin. Marat’s dedication to healing may have derived from personal ailments that evoked descriptions of him as being “short in stature, deformed in person, and hideous in face.” Prominent among his various infirmities was a skin disease that blighted the final years of his lire, compelling Marat to take frequent medicinal baths for relief from the itching and pain. Some portraits of Marat depict him with bandana wrapped around his head, which in fact was soaked with vinegar to soothe his blistered scalp. Dr. Joseph Jelinek, clinical professor of dermatology at New York University, suggests that Marat may have suffered from Duhring’s disease, a severe form of dermatitis (see sidebar).

M A R AT, J E A N - PA U L

In 1788, as France began its drift toward revolution, Marat abandoned science in favor of campaigning for the “Third Estate”—that is, all Frenchmen who were not among the clergy or nobility. In September 1789, he launched his own radical newspaper, L’Ami du peuple (“The Friend of the People”), which attacked the high and might throughout French society. When the newspaper was banned, Marat sought refuge literally underground, hiding beneath the streets of Paris in the city’s sewers. Despite his appearance and fugitive life style, he managed to marry a woman 23 years his junior, and emerged from hiding after full-scale revolution erupted on August 10, 1792. A month later, when France was declared a republic, Marat claimed a seat in the ruling National Convention and renamed his newspaper Le Journal de la République française (“Journal of the French Republic”). Following the execution of King Louis XVI in January 1793, Marat devoted the rest of his life to pursuit of surviving Girondists. Marat’s assassination had the opposite effect of that intended by Charlotte Corday, in that it helped precipitate the Reign of Terror that claimed some 42,000 lives nationwide between September 1793 and July 1794. Marat himself became a martyr to the revolutionary cause, glamorized in posthumous portraits with unblemished skin and finely sculpted features. The entire National Convention attended Marat’s funeral, with his heart embalmed separately. In November 1793, his remains were exhumed and transferred to the Panthéon, where his good friend, the Marquis de Sade, delivered a eulogy comparing Marat to Jesus. His memory lived on 128 years later, in far-off Russia, where Bolshevik revolutionists renamed the tsarist battleship Petropavlovsk

DUHRING’S DISEASE Technically known as dermatitis herpetiformis, or DH, this chronic skin disease is characterized by painful blisters filled with watery fluid. Its Latin name refers to inflammation of the skin resembling herpes, but DH is not in fact related to the herpes virus. Named after Dr. Louis Duhring, who first officially described the ailment in 1884, DH is now believed to result, in some still-uncertain manner, from celiac disease (gluten intolerance), an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine occurring in genetically predisposed persons of both sexes and all ages. Published estimates of DH prevalence range from 1 in 400 to 1 in 10,000. If the suspected link to celiac disease is true, that hypothesis apparently negates claims that Jean-Paul Marat caught the ailment while hiding as a fugitive in the Parisian sewers.

319

320

M A S K H A D O V, A S L A N A L I Y E V I C H

the Marat. The same year, after Soviets captured Sevastopol, they renamed the city’s main street for Marat. Further Reading Bax, Ernest. Jean-Paul Marat: The People’s Friend. London: G. Richards, 1901. Conner, Clifford. Jean Paul Marat: Scientist and Revolutionary. Buffalo, NY: Humanity Books, 1997. Gottschalk, Louis. Jean Paul Marat: A Study in Radicalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967.

MASKHADOV, ASLAN ALIYEVICH (1951–2005) On March 8, 2005, Nikolay Patrushev, chief of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), announced completion of a paramilitary operation targeting Aslan Maskhadov, third president of the former Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and ongoing leader of guerrilla resistance against Russian occupation of Chechnya. According to Patrushev, FSB commandos hoped to capture Maskhadov alive, but he was “accidentally” slain by a hand grenade tossed into his command bunker. That claim was later refuted by ballistic evidence indicating that Maskhadov was shot by his nephew/bodyguard, Viskhan Hadzhimuradov. One of four guerrillas caught alive in the May 8 raid, Hadzhimuradov claimed that he could not remember shooting Maskhadov after the grenade exploded in their bunker, but said, “My uncle always told me to shoot him if he is wounded and his capture is imminent. He said that if he is taken prisoner, he would be mistreated like Saddam Hussein had been.” Russian troops held Maskhadov’s remains until April 2006, then buried them in an unmarked grave, refusing to tell his relatives the location on grounds that Maskhadov was “criminally responsible for many separate serious crimes on the territory of the Russian Federation,” and that secret burial of his corpse “was being pursued for our protection.” Aslan Maskhadov was born at Shakai, a village in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (now Kazakhstan), on September 21, 1951. His parents were Chechens, deported from their homeland during “Operation Lentil,” ordered by Russian dictator Josef Stalin in 1944, as the climax of a four-year rebellion against Russian rule. The family returned to Chechnya in 1957, and Maskhadov later joined the Soviet army, graduating from its Tbilisi Artillery School in 1972, then from Leningrad’s Mikhail Kalinin Military Artillery Academy in 1981. In 1991, as chief of staff for Soviet missile and artillery forces in Vilnius, Lithuania, Maskhadov participated in the “January Events” that left 13 anti-Soviet protesters dead and more than 1,000 injured. He retired from military service as a colonel, in 1992, following dissolution of the Soviet Union, and returned to Chechnya. In March 1994, Maskhadov was appointed to serve as chief of staff for his homeland’s armed forces.

M C G L I N C H E Y, D O M I N I C

The First Chechen War against Russian rule erupted on December 11, 1994, with Maskhadov serving as first deputy chairman of the State Defence Council under President Dzhokhar Dudayev. He joined in peace talks at Grozny, in June 1995, but the war continued for another 14 months, until the Khasavyurt Accord achieved a temporary ceasefire. Appointed as prime minister on October 17, 1996, Maskhadov continued serving defense minister and army chief of staff, while declaring himself a presidential candidate in elections scheduled for January 1997. He won 60 percent of the popular vote in that contest, and assumed office on February 12, 1997. Three months later, he signed a peace treaty with Russian president Boris Yeltsin, but tension continued to simmer between the two nations. As president, Maskhadov inherited a republic infested with organized crime, rife with ransom kidnappings, in which regional warlords constantly challenged his authority. Maskhadov responded by imposing Islamic Sharia law, with courts that imposed draconian sentences for “crimes” including adultery and blasphemy. Several assassination attempts quickly followed—on July 23, 1998; March 21, 1999; and April 10, 1999—with Maskhadov’s assailants employing bombs and antitank rockets. Maskhadov blamed Russian agents for those attacks, and was in turn accused of invading Dagestan on August 7, 1999, a raid in fact carried out by warlord Shamil Basayev’s Islamic International Brigade, over Maskhadov’s protests. Russia also blamed Chechnya for a series of apartment bombings that killed 293 people and wounded 651 in September 1999. A Second Chechen War ensued, officially concluded with a Russian victory in May 2000. Maskhadov refused to surrender, leading a guerrilla insurgency that included terrorist actions both in Chechnya and Russia—notably including the Dubrovka Theater siege of October 2002, which claimed at least 170 lives, and the Nazran raid of June 2004, which killed 98 police officers in the Republic of Ingushetia. Finally repulsed by the Beslan school siege that left 385 dead in September 2004, Maskhadov issued an order suspending all military action, other than self-defense, on January 15, 2005. The unilateral ceasefire was supposed to facilitate peace talks, but Russia’s FSB took advantage of the lull to eliminate their primary rival. Further Reading Schaefer, Robert. The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus: From Gazavat to Jihad. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International, 2011. Smith, Sebastian. Allah’s Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya. London: Tauris Parke, 2005.

MCGLINCHEY, DOMINIC (1954–1994) On February 10, 1994, Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) chief of staff Dominic “Mad Dog” McGlinchey made a call from a public phone booth in Drogheda, County Louth, in the Republic of Ireland. While he was engaged in

321

322

M C G L I N C H E Y, D O M I N I C

conversation, a car stopped nearby and two gunmen emerged, shooting McGlinchey 14 times with instantly fatal results. The crime remains officially unsolved today, with suggested suspects including loyalist paramilitary forces, the rival Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), state security forces, or some element of Irish organized crime. At McGlinchey’s funeral in Bellaghy, Northern Ireland, Bernadette Devlin McAliskey—herself a target of would-be assassins in 1981—condemned journalists who accused McGlinchey or gangster activity as “curs and dogs. May everyone of them rot in hell. They have taken away Dominic McGlinchey’s character and they will stand judgment for it. He was the finest Republican of them all. He never dishonored the cause he believed in. His war was with the armed soldiers and the police of this state.” Dominic McGlinchey was one of 10 children born to staunch republican parents in Bellaghy, raised from infancy to oppose British rule in Northern Ireland. In August 1971, he was arrested and detained for 10 months without charges, on suspicion of participating in PIRA activity. Still devoted to the struggle, he was jailed again in 1973, on weapons charges, and in 1977 for hijacking a police car, threatening its driver with a gun. While confined at Portlaoise Prison, in 1982, McGlinchey quarreled with PIRA leaders over the proper tactics and course of armed struggle, prompting his expulsion from the organization. Paroled before year’s end, he quickly found a place in the competing INLA, enlisting as operations officer for South Derry and winning promotion to chief of staff within six months. McGlinchey streamlined the INLA and set it on a path of more aggressive and effective action. British agents blamed him for planning a bombing at the Droppin’ Well Bar, in Ballykelly, which killed 11 soldiers and six civilians in December 1982, among other violent actions. Six days after that blast, on December 12, authorities tried to trap McGlinchey at a roadblock, but killed two other INLA members instead. That bungled ambush was apparently planed by “The Det”—14 Field Security and Intelligence Company—a unit of the British army’s Intelligence Corps, known for collaboration with Protestant gunmen in acts of loyalist terrorism. In addition to government plots and McGlinchey’s squabbles with the PIRA, Irish historian Tim Pat Coogan reports that McGlinchey ran the INLA in autocratic fashion, executing members who challenged his authority and thereby making enemies. In one such case, members of one INLA chapter were killed for misappropriating £50,000 collected from a mail fraud operation mounted to finance the organization. Some observers believe that internecine feud may have resulted in McGlinchey’s death, years after the fact. Meanwhile, in March 1994, he was wounded and captured in a shootout with Gardaí officers in Ralahine, County Clare. Extradited to Northern Ireland, McGlinchey was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, but an appellate court overturned his conviction in October 1985, citing

M C K I N L E Y, W I L L I A M , J R .

insufficient evidence. Police returned McGlinchey to the Republic of Ireland, where he faced a 10-year term on firearms charges. Gunmen murdered his wife at home, in Dundalk, on January 31, 1987, and authorities denied McGlinchey’s request to attend her funeral. Paroled once more in March 1993, McGlinchey announced plans to investigate criminal money laundering conducted by his longtime loyalist adversaries of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Billy Wright, commander of the UVF’s Mid-Ulster Brigade, tried to kill McGlinchey in June 1993 and was subsequently imprisoned, murdered in custody by the INLA in December 1997. By that time, unknown others had succeeded in eliminating McGlinchey, where Wright had failed. The INLA outlived McGlinchey, and continued guerrilla warfare into the 21st century. McGlinchey’s son, Declan, was jailed on explosives charges in October 2006, linked to a July bombing in Bellaghy. He was later cleared in that case, then arrested on suspicion of killing a policeman in March 2009. Those charges were also dismissed, as prosecutors convicted members of a rival republican group, the Continuity IRA, for the murder in March 2012. Further Reading Holland, Jack, and Henry McDonald. INLA: Deadly Divisions. Dublin: Poolbeg Press, 1994. Taylor, Peter. Brits: The War against the IRA. London: Bloomsbury, 2002.

MCKINLEY, WILLIAM, JR. (1843–1901) On September 6, 1901, President William McKinley visited the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, as part of a protracted national tour that had seen his wife fall gravely ill in California, three months earlier. McKinley’s secretary, George Cortelyou, warned of possible danger at the exhibition, twice deleting a visit to the fair’s Temple of Music from McKinley’s schedule, but the president insisted on keeping the appointment without any special security precautions. While in the Temple, shaking hands with well-wishers at 4:07 P.M., McKinley was shot twice at close range by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. One bullet grazed the president; the other pierced his torso and was never found by attending physicians. Although initially supposed to be recovering, McKinley developed gangrene from his wound and died at 2:15 A.M. on September 14. Czolgosz was convicted of murder on September 23, 1901, and died in New York’s electric chair on October 29. Authorities doused his corpse with acid to dissolve it, before he was buried at Sing Sing Prison. William McKinley Jr. was born in Niles, Ohio, on January 29, 1843, the seventh of nine children raised in a strict Methodist household. He joined the Union army in June 1861 and served under Major (and future president) Rutherford

323

324

M C K I N L E Y, W I L L I A M , J R .

Hayes, who became McKinley’s political mentor. Ending the war as a second lieutenant, McKinley studied law with an Ohio attorney and was admitted to the bar in 1867. In 1869 he was elected as a county prosecutor, then lost his bid for a second term two years later. His legal defense of indicted labor organizers helped McKinley win a congressional seat in 1876, and his friendship with presidentelect Hayes further advanced McKinley’s political career. Unseated by a Democratic rival in 1882, McKinley vowed to quit politics, but changed his President William McKinley, shot by anarchist mind in time to win another congressional term in 1884, Leon Czolgosz in 1901. (Library of Congress) holding that post until 1891, when voters chose him as Ohio’s governor. Political connections, including close ties to Ohio machine boss Mark Hanna, secured McKinley the GOP’s (Grand Old Party) presidential nomination in 1896, and he defeated rival William Jennings Bryan by a margin of some 600,000 votes. He repaid his backers by arranging Hanna’s appointment to the U.S. Senate in 1897. The most significant event of McKinley’s first presidential term was the Spanish-American War, a four-month imperialistic contest that left the United States in charge of Spanish colonies including Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. That “splendid little war” also made a national hero of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, winning “Teddy” the post of McKinley’s running mate in 1900, since Vice President Garret Hobart had died in office on November 21, 1899. McKinley defeated William Jennings Bryan a second time in 1900, this time by more than 857,000 votes. The president was still celebrating his reelection when Leon Czolgosz shot him in Buffalo, six months after McKinley’s inauguration. Teddy Roosevelt succeeded McKinley as president, launching in the United States a “progressive” era and astounding old-line Republicans with his attacks on monopolies and support for organized labor, coupled with federal legislation to protect consumers from tainted food and medicine. When he declined to seek reelection in 1908, the GOP suffered a schism between progressive and conservative elements, but confirmed the nomination of Roosevelt’s

M C K I N L E Y, W I L L I A M , J R .

hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft. Taft, in turn, handed a third defeat to William Jennings Bryan, who retired thereafter to private legal practice and the Chautauqua lecture circuit. McKinley’s assassination drove Congress to demand better security for U.S. presidents. Accordingly, the U.S. Secret Service—founded in 1865, but confined to investigation of counterfeiting and federal fraud violations—was ordered to assume responsibility for safety of the president in 1902. Sixtysix years later, following the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy, Secret

ANARCHISM Anarchism is broadly defined as a philosophy opposing hierarchical government and supporting a stateless society. Within that wide generalization, many different schools of thought exist, ranging from radical left-wing ideologies to far-right libertarianism. Some historians trace the first anarchist philosophy ideology to Taoist philosopher Laozi, in the 6th century BCE, evolving through the ages to find expression from British author William Godwin (1756–1836). The first person to publicly call himself an anarchist was French philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865), although he altered his self-designation to “federalist” in 1848. That same year, revolutions against traditional authority rocked 10 European nations, most of which failed to unseat reigning monarchies. The short-lived Paris Commune of spring 1871 was another radical experiment, doomed by a falling out between anarchists and more doctrinaire Marxists. Although many anarchists were also pacifists, Johann Most (1846–1906) argued for violence—“propaganda of the deed”—as a means of deposing monarchs or other heads of state. By the 1880s, bombing and assassination were staple tactics of the radical anarchist movement, labeled “illegalism.” Aside from President McKinley, famous victims of anarchist assassins include Tsar Alexander II of Russia, Spanish prime minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, King Umberto I of Italy, King Carlos I of Portugal, and King George I of Greece. State repression inevitably followed, creating an escalating climate of violence. In the United States, a rash of anarchist bombings after World War I culminated with a blast on Wall Street, in New York City, that killed 38 persons and seriously wounded 143 on September 16, 1920. Following World War II, anarchism resurfaced internationally with a network of organizations including the Mexican Anarchist Federation, the French Fédération Anarchiste, Italy’s Federazione Anarchica Italiana, and Korea’s League of Free Social Constructors, among others.

325

326

MEDICI, GIULIANO DE’

Service protection was extended to all major presidential and vice presidential candidates and nominees. Further Reading Johns, A. Wesley. The Man Who Shot McKinley. South Brunswick, NJ: A. S. Barnes, 1970. Miller, Scott. The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century. New York: Random House, 2011. Morgan, H. Wayne. William McKinley and His America. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2003. Rauchway, Eric. Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt’s America. New York: Hill and Wang, 2004.

MEDICI, GIULIANO DE’ (1453–1478) On Sunday, April 26, 1478, Giuliano de’ Medici attended High Mass at the Duomo in Florence, Italy, with his elder brother, Lorenzo the Magnificent. Recognized as co-rulers of Florence, the Medicis were patrons of the arts and bankers to the Vatican, an exalted position inspiring both awe and envy. That morning, before an audience of 10,000 worshipers, the brothers were attacked by rivals Francesco de’ Pazzi and Bernardo Bandi. Giuliano de’ Medici died in his pew, his skull cloven with a sword and his torso punctured by 19 stab wounds. Lorenzo, also injured, managed to escape in the confusion and survived to orchestrate revenge against his enemies. Giuliano de’ Medici was a Florentine native, born in 1453, fourth child and second son of Piero “The Gouty” de’ Medici, de facto ruler of Florence from 1464 to 1469. The House of Medici (“medical doctors”) had, by then, established prominence through their Medici Bank, founded in 1397, the financial backer of assorted factories and a supporter of the Vatican. The line would also spawn four popes (including Clement VII, Giuliano de’ Medici’s illegitimate son) and two regent queens of France, while reigning as hereditary dukes of Florence and Tuscany. A jealous, less powerful family of Florentine bankers, the Pazzis, schemed incessantly to supplant the Medicis, encouraged from 1471 by Pope Sixtus IV. Sixtus opened hostilities by purchasing the lordship of Imola, in the province of Bologna, which Lorenzo de’ Medici coveted. Francesco de’ Pazzi financed that transaction, after promising Lorenzo that he would not help Sixtus in any moves against the Medicis, and Sixtus rewarded the Pazzis with a monopoly on alum mined at Tolga (an essential substance used in dyeing fabrics for the Florentine textile industry). The pope then named Girolamo Riario as governor of Imola, while appointing Francesco Salviati—scion of another banking family opposed to the Medicis—as archbishop of Pisa. When Salviati and Francesco de’ Pazzi hatched their final plot to depose the Medicis by force, Pope Sixtus promised his

MEDICI, GIULIANO DE’

support, with the weak proviso “as long as no one is killed.” Less concerned with bloodless victory, conspirator Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino and condottieri (mercenary warlord) for the Vatican, stationed 600 troops outside Florence, prepared to strike when the order was given. In fact, however, the assassins botched their bid to kill Lorenzo de’ Medici at the Duomo, and coordinated moves against the Gonfaloniere of Justice and the nine-member Signoria of Florence also failed. Still hopeful of success, Francesco and Jacopo de’ Pazzi convened a rally of supporters at the Palazzo della Signoria (now Palazzo Vecchio) on April 27, chanting for liberty. To the Pazzis’ surprise, enraged Florentines attacked the rally and hurled Francesco to his death from the palazzo’s roof, then dragged him through the streets and tossed his corpse into the Arno River. The mob also hanged Francesco Salviati, and killed other suspected conspirators on sight. Jacopo de’ Pazzi managed to escape, hiding in San Gimignano, but was hunted down and killed there in 1480. In his absence, the surviving Pazzis were divested of their titles and possessions and driven into exile. With the conspiracy’s failure, Pope Sixtus IV placed Florence under interdict, forbidding its residents from participating in mass or communion. He enlisted Ferdinand I, king of Naples, but Lorenzo the Magnificent trumped Sixtus by sailing to Naples and placing himself in Ferdinand’s custody for three

POPE CLEMENT VII (1478–1534) Giulio di Giuliano de’ Medici was born in Florence, 30 days after his father’s assassination. Although Giuliano de’ Medici had never married Giulio’s mother, Fioretta Gorini, a loophole in canon law granted the child legitimacy on grounds that his parents were betrothed to wed when Giuliano died. Orphaned in infancy, Giulio was adopted and educated by uncle Lorenzo the Magnificent, and subsequently made a knight of Rhodes and Grand Prior of Capua. When cousin Giovanni de’ Medici became Pope Leo X, he named Giulio archbishop of Florence. Consecrated as a cardinal in September 1513, he held that post until 1523, when he succeeded short-lived Pope Adrian VI. He survived the Sack of Rome by Cardinal Pompeo Colonna’s troops in 1527, but his power was sapped by that incident and by his inability to keep Henry VIII or England from divorcing his first wife to marry Anne Boleyn. Clement died in Rome after eating a poison mushroom in September 1534. That circumstance encouraged speculation that he may have been assassinated, but no investigation resulted. Two months later, England’s parliament passed an Act of Supremacy, establishing an independent Church of England.

327

328

MITRIONE, DANIEL ANTHONY

months, while negotiating a truce. Lorenzo survived until 1492, ruling Florence and adopting Giuliano’s illegitimate son, grooming him for his future role as cardinal and pope. The Pazzis returned to Florence in 1494, when Lorenzo’s son—Piero the Unfortunate—proved himself incompetent and was deposed by King Charles VIII of France. Further Reading Hibbert, Christopher. The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall. New York: William Morrow, 1999. Knecht, R. J. Catherine de’Medici. Harlow, United Kingdom: Longman, 1998. Martines, Lauro. April Blood: Florence and the Plot against the Medici. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Parks, Tim. Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. Unger, Miles. Magnifico: The Brilliant and Violent Times of Lorenzo de’ Medici. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008.

MITRIONE, DANIEL ANTHONY (1920–1970) On July 31, 1970, members of the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement kidnapped Daniel Mitrione, a U.S. citizen assigned to the U.S. Office of Public Safety in Montevideo, Uruguay. The guerrillas demanded release of 150 political prisoners in exchange for Mitrione’s safe return, but Uruguayan authorities rejected the demand, supported in their decision by the U.S. State Department. On August 10, police found Mitrione dead in an abandoned car. He had been shot twice in the head, and also had a shoulder wound—sustained during his kidnapping—which had been treated in captivity. Tupamaros spokesmen said Mitrione was slain in retaliation for the deaths of student protestors, killed by police whom Mitrione had trained in riot-control techniques. Daniel Mitrione was born in Italy on August 4, 1920, and emigrated to the United States as a child, with his parents. He entered law enforcement at age 25, as an officer of the Richmond (Indiana) Police Department, and briefly joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1959, before shifting to the State Department’s International Cooperation Administration (ICA) the following year. That job took him to Brazil, where Mitrione spent the next seven years teaching “advanced counterinsurgency techniques” to police and military officers. Congress dissolved the ICA in 1961, transferring its functions to the new U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), and Mitrione continued his duties without interruption. Apologists would later claim that Mitrione’s work involved instruction in “responsible and humane police administration,” but the truth—only revealed after his death—was rather different. In fact, while collaborating with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), he taught courses in torture, both in Brazil and later, after

MITRIONE, DANIEL ANTHONY

moving to Uruguay in 1969. There, operating from a private home in Montevideo with a basement interrogation chamber beneath its garage, Mitrione held regular classes, employing kidnap victims as his subjects. Speaking to a Cuban exile, Manuel Hevia Cosculluela, Mitrione described his technique as employing “the precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect.” Mitrione went on to say, “When you get what you want, and I always get it, it may be good to prolong the session a little to apply another softening-up. Not to extract information now, but only as a political measure, to create a healthy fear of meddling in subversive matters. You must always leave him some hope . . . a distant light. A premature death means a failure by the technician. It’s important to know in advance if we can permit ourselves the luxury of the subject’s death.” According to Hevia, he watched Mitrione personally kill four subjects with electric shocks. As he described it in his published memoir: Soon things turned unpleasant. As subjects for the first testing they took beggars, known in Uruguay as bichicomes, from the outskirts of Montevideo, as well as a woman apparently from the frontier area of Brazil. There was no interrogation, only a demonstration of the effects of different voltages on different parts of the human body, as well as demonstrating the use of a drug which induces vomiting—I don’t know why or what for—and another chemical substance. The four of them died.

SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS Founded in Panama, in 1946, the School of the Americas (SOA) was initially created to instruct Latin American and Caribbean authorities in anticommunist counterinsurgency techniques. Although theoretically committed to maintenance of ethical law enforcement, it has been derided by critics as a “School for Dictators,” “School for Assassins,” and a “Nursery for Death Squads.” Panamanian president Jorge Illueca once referred to the SOA as “the biggest base for destabilization in Latin America.” Training an average 2,000 soldiers and police officers per year, the school moved to Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1984, and in 2001 was formally renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Allegations of training in torture, subversion, and assassination persist to the present day, promulgated by a group founded in 1990, the School of the Americas Watch. In El Salvador alone, under President Ronald Reagan’s administration, the United Nations Truth Commission identified 49 SOA graduates as participants in a series of massacres and individual assassinations. In 1992, of 246 Colombian officers charged with acts of brutality, 105 were identified SOA students.

329

330

M O A W A D, R E N É

William Cantrell, a CIA operations officer stationed in Uruguay, confirmed that Mitrione received special torture equipment from the United States, shipped in diplomatic pouches to avoid discovery. He said: “One of the pieces of equipment that was found useful was a wire so very thin that it could be fitted into the mouth between the teeth and by pressing against the gum increase the electrical charge.” Further Reading Langguth, A. J. Hidden Terrors: The Truth about U.S. Police Operations in Latin America. New York: Pantheon Books, 1979. McCoy, Alfred. A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. New York: Owl Books, 2006. Otterman, Michael. American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and Beyond. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Press, 2007. Weschler, Lawrence. A Miracle, a Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

MOAWAD, RENÉ (1925–1989) On November 22, 1989, Lebanese president René Moawad attended his nation’s Independence Day celebration in Beirut. Only 17 days had elapsed since Moawad’s inauguration, but his tenure would proceed no further. As he returned from the festivities to his home in West Beirut, a 550-pound bomb exploded near his car, killing Moawad and 23 others. Despite public accusations lodged against various suspects, no formal charges were filed and the case remains officially unsolved today. René Moawad was born in Zgharta, North Lebanon, on April 17, 1925, to a Maronite Christian family. He was educated at Tripoli’s De La Salle School and at Aintoura’s Saint Joseph College, before obtaining a law degree from Beirut’s Saint Joseph University in 1947. Former prime minister Abdallah El-Yafi welcomed Moawad as a partner in his law firm prior to 1951, when Moawad opened his own office in Tripoli. That same year witnessed Moawad’s entry into politics, with an unsuccessful campaign for a seat in the National Assembly. In 1952, police detained Moawad for participating in an uprising that forced President Bechara El Khoury to resign. Although soon liberated, Moawad’s outspoken opposition to successor Camille Chamoun prompted him to leave Lebanon, spending the next five years in Syria and Egypt. Moawad came home in 1957, and won his second bid for a National Assembly seat that year; he was subsequently reelected in 1960, 1964, 1968, and 1972. He also served in cabinet posts under Prime Minister Rashid Karami, first as minister of posts and telecommunications (October 1961 through February 1964), then as minister of public works ( January through November 1969). Prime Minister Shafik Wazzan appointed Moawad as minister of

M O H A M M E D , M U R TA L A R A M AT

national education and fine arts in October 1980, serving through September 1982. Much of Moawad’s political career played out against the background of Lebanon’s multifaceted civil war, begun with violence between Christians and Muslims in April 1975. Over the next 15 years, Moawad advocated nonviolent solutions to the country’s ethnic and religious schisms, stating his premise as follows: “There can be no country or dignity without unity of the people, and there can be no unity without agreement, and there can be no agreement without conciliation, and there can be no conciliation without forgiveness and compromise.” The Taif Agreement, ratified on November 4, 1989, ostensibly ended the fighting—although Syrian troops remained active in Lebanon until April 2005—and Lebanon’s National Assembly met the following day, electing Moawad as the country’s first president since Amine Gemayel left office in 1988. Elias Hrawi succeeded Moawad on November 24, two days after the fatal bombing in Beirut. No serious investigation of Moawad’s assassination was ever attempted. Syrian spokesmen blamed Michel Naim Aoun, a former Lebanese army officer and head of the country’s second largest political party, the Free Patriotic Movement. Aoun served as prime minister from September 1988 to October 1990, in one of two rival governments, and he is currently a member of parliament. No specific evidence against Aoun was offered by detractors who accused him of plotting Moawad’s murder. Further Reading Johnson, Michael. All Honourable Men: The Social Origins of War in Lebanon. London: I.B. Tauris, 2002. O’balance, Edgar. Civil War in Lebanon, 1975–92. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 1998.

MOHAMMED, MURTALA RAMAT (1938–1976) On February 13, 1976, Lieutenant Colonel Buka Suka Dimka staged an abortive coup against the Nigerian government led by General Murtala Mohammed. The rebels’ first act was an ambush of Mohammed’s vehicle in the Ioki neighborhood of Lagos, while he was en route to his office at Dodan Barracks. The attackers killed Mohammed, his driver, an orderly, and his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Akintunde Akinsehinwa. Despite that initial success, loyal troops crushed the rebellion, arresting Dimka and 38 other conspirators, while alleged ringleader Yakubu “Jack” Dan-Yumma Gowon— deposed as head of state by Mohammed in July 1975—escaped to England, where authorities declined to extradite him. Dimka and the rest were convicted by a court-martial and publicly executed at Bar Beach, in Lagos, by a firing squad.

331

332

M O H A M M E D, M U R T A L A R A M A T

Murtala Mohammed was born in Kano, Nigeria, on November 8, 1938, and completed his education at Zaria’s Government (now Barewa) College in 1957. He joined the Nigerian army and, because Nigeria was then a British colony, trained as an officer cadet at England’s Sandhurst Royal Academy. Commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1961, a year after Nigeria achieved independence, Mohammed advanced to the rank of brigadier over the next decade. Further study in England, at the Joint Services Staff College, prepared him for his first political Nigerian general Murtala Mohammed died in a appointment—as commissioner for communications—in 1974. military coup, in 1976. (Associated Press) At the same time, Mohammed kept his military post and prepared to move against General Yakubu Gowon, who had reneged on his pledge to restore civilian rule by 1976. On July 25, 1975, while Gowon attended a meeting of the Organization of African Unity in Uganda, Major General Joseph Nanven Garba announced his overthrow, then named Murtala Mohammed as the new head of state. Over the next 201 days, Mohammed gained wide popular support with a variety of measures that included granting 12 of 25 ministerial posts on a new Federal Executive Council to civilians and setting up of a public complaints’ commission to address grievances against the government. He created 19 states from the 12 established in 1967, while extending federal authority and restricting the arbitrary power of state governors. Mohammed purged some 10,000 federal employees on grounds of age, health, incompetence, or malpractice, and began demobilizing 100,000 troops from the army’s inflated ranks. He also scrapped a rigged census from 1973, which favored northern Nigeria in electoral matters, and reinstated a more evenhanded tabulation from 1963. His foreign policy of “Nigeria first” aimed to reduce inflation by aligning Nigeria with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, reducing the amount of currency in circulation, restricting foreign capital’s access to certain Nigerian districts, and supporting the Soviet-backed Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola.

M O N D L A N E , E D U A R D O C H I VA M B O

NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR On July 6, 1967, Nigeria’s southeastern provinces attempted to secede and form the independent nation of Biafra. Federal troops launched a “police action” against the rebel districts, led primarily by northern officers from the Hausa ethnic group, whereas their opponents were primarily Igbos. The fighting reached a stalemate in 1968, amid allegations that Nigerian forces were waging a war of starvation and genocide. The Republic of Biafra officially rejoined Nigeria on January 15, 1970, and later agitation for a new secession movement proved fruitless. One legacy of the war was creation of the independent humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (“Doctors Without Borders”), which remains active today, honored with a Seoul Peace Prize in 1996 and a Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.

None of those moves endeared Mohammed to the West, and in the wake of his assassination, allegations of conspiracy were leveled against the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the Israeli Mossad. Despite—or because of—that foreign opposition, Mohammed remains one of the recognized national heroes of the Nigerian nation. General Olusegun Obasanjo succeeded Mohammed as Nigeria’s military head of state, until October 1979, and subsequently was elected to a term as the country’s civilian president, serving from May 1999 to May 2007. Further Reading Campbell, John. Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink. Plymouth, England: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. El-Rufai, Nasir. The Accidental Public Servant. Seattle, WA: CreateSpace, 2011. Osaghae, Eghosa. Crippled Giant: Nigeria Since Independence. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998.

MONDLANE, EDUARDO CHIVAMBO (1920–1969) On February 3, 1969, a package arrived by mail at the office of FRELIMO—the Liberation Front of Mozambique—in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The parcel was addressed to FRELIMO president Eduardo Mondlane, and contained a book. When Mondlane opened the book, a bomb exploded in his hands, killing him instantly. The crime remains officially unsolved today, with various observers blaming dissident FRELIMO members or agents of Portugal’s secret police, bent on maintaining Mozambique’s 450-year status as a Portuguese colony.

333

334

M O N D L A N E , E D U A R D O C H I VA M B O

Eduardo Mondlane was born on June 20, 1920, at Manjacaze, in Gaza Province, the fourth of 16 sons sired by a Tsonga tribal chieftain. He worked as a shepherd through early adolescence, while completing his primary education at local schools, then enrolled at a Swiss-Presbyterian college in South Africa’s Transvaal Province. From there, Mondlane proceeded to study at the Jan Hofmeyer School of Social Work and Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand, until the institution of apartheid resulted in expulsion of that school’s black students in 1949. The following year, Mondlane enrolled at the University of Lisbon, then transferred to Ohio’s Oberlin College in 1951. He graduated in 1953, with a degree in anthropology and sociology, before pursuing doctoral studies at Northwestern University in Illinois, finally obtaining his PhD from Harvard University. By 1957, Mondlane was back in Africa, working as a researcher for the Trusteeship Department of the United Nations (UN). The UN’s ban on overt political activity cramped his style, and Mondlane soon resigned to serve as an assistant professor of anthropology at New York’s Syracuse University, developing the school’s East African Studies Program. In 1963, Mondlane left that post and moved to Tanzania, immersing himself full-time in his homeland’s struggle for independence with FRELIMO, founded the previous year. He arrived in the second year of the Mozambican War of Independence, and was soon elected as FRELIMO’s president, operating from Dar es Salaam. Mondlane’s majority faction supported guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial authorities, coupled with a campaign to establish Mozambique as a socialist society. Opponents within FRELIMO, led by Lazaro Nkavandame and Uria Simango, opposed a radical overhaul of Mozambican society— or, in the view of their critics, supported replacement of the ruling white elite with a black FRELIMO elite. A party congress held in July 1968 chose the socialist position and elected Mondlane to a second term as president, while the war in Mozambique continued. Some historians believe that vote prompted supporters of Nkavandame and Simango to assassinate Mondlane seven months later. Others blame Portugal’s Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (PIDE: International and State Defense Police) for Mondlane’s murder. Founded in 1945, the PIDE changed its title shortly after Mondlane’s assassination, becoming the General Security Directorate (DGS). Mozambique’s liberation struggle continued until September 8, 1974, when a ceasefire was declared with negotiations proceeding toward independence in June 1975. That victory was occasioned, at least in part, by Portugal’s own “Carnation Revolution” of April 1974, which deposed the dictatorship established in 1926. Peace remained elusive, however, as civil war erupted in Mozambique during May 1977 and continued through October 1992, claiming an estimated one million lives.

MOORE, HARRY TYSON

Further Reading Finnegan, William. A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Mondlane, Eduardo. The Struggle for Mozambique. Harmondsworth, United Kingdom: Penguin Books, 1969. Saul, John. “Invasion from the Outside? The Roots and Resolution of Mozambique’s Un/Civil War.” In Civil Wars in Africa: Roots and Resolution. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999.

MOORE, HARRY TYSON (1905–1951) Harry Moore, executive director of Florida’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, celebrated the 25th anniversary of his marriage to wife Harriette on Christmas Day, 1951. That night, a bomb exploded beneath the bedroom of their home in Mims, demolishing the house. Harry died en route to a hospital in Sanford, and his wife survived until January 3, 1952. Despite investigation by state authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the double murder—and first assassination of a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) official during the postwar civil rights movement—remains officially unsolved today. Harry Moore was born in Houston, Florida, on November 18, 1905, lost his father at age nine, and was raised by three maternal aunts when his widowed mother proved unable to support the family alone. He earned a normal (teaching) degree from Bethune-Cookman College, at Daytona Beach, in 1936, and began his career as a teacher in Cocoa, Florida, later advancing to serve as principal of the Titusville Colored School in Brevard County. In 1934, Moore and his wife, also a teacher, founded a local branch of the NAACP, pursuing causes that included equal pay for teachers of all races, prosecution of lynchers, registration of black voters, and legal challenges to Florida’s whites-only primary elections. In 1944, Moore founded the Progressive Voters’ League, registering 116,000 African American voters by 1950. Those activities made Moore a marked man in Jim Crow–era Florida. State authorities fired Moore and his wife from their teaching positions in 1946, whereupon he turned to NAACP work full-time, recruiting 10,000 members by 1948. The following year, Moore became embroiled in the Groveland rape case, involving four black defendants accused of assaulting a white woman. Today, most historians agree that no rape occurred, but at the time, the very allegation sparked racist hysteria. A posse killed one suspect, and three others were arrested and tortured by sheriff’s deputies until they confessed. At trial, two were sentenced to die, and the third—only 16 years old—received a life prison term. More led a personal investigation of the case, collaborating with attorneys who appealed those verdicts and won an order for a new trial from

335

336

M O R O, A L D O

the U.S. Supreme Court in April 1951. Seven months later, while transporting two of the defendants from prison to court, sheriff Willis McCall shot both at close range, killing one and gravely wounding the other. Survivor Walter Irvin was convicted and condemned a second time; his sentence was later commuted to life, with parole granted in 1968. Moore’s civil rights campaigns and the Groveland case sparked a revival of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Florida, producing a reign of terror against blacks, Catholics, and Jews. Florida suffered 11 racist bombings in 1951, before the blast that killed the Moores, plus several botched attempts and other KKK crimes including homicides and floggings. Sheriff McCall—an open Klan supporter, if not an actual member—escaped indictment in the 1951 shootings and remained in office until 1972, when Governor Reuben Askew suspended him for beating a black prisoner to death in the Lake County jail. Around the same time, author Stetson Kennedy named McCall as a suspect in the Moore bombing, but insufficient evidence existed to indict him. Florida attorney general Charles Crist Jr. reopened Moore’s case in 2005, announcing the results of his investigation in August 2006. That report named four deceased KKK members as suspects in the case. They included: Earl Brooklyn and Tillman Belvin, both of whom died from natural causes within a year of the bombing; Joseph Neville Cox, alleged ringleader of the plot, who committed suicide after an FBI interview in 1952; and Edward Spivey, a Klansman who implicated Cox prior to dying from cancer in 1978. See also: Ku Klux Klan (1866– ).

Further Reading Green, Ben. Before His Time: The Untold Story of Harry T. Moore, America’s First Civil Rights Martyr. New York: The Free Press, 1999. Newton, Michael. The Invisible Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. Saunders, Robert. Bridging the Gap: Continuing the Florida NAACP Legacy of Harry T. Moore. Tampa, FL: University of Tampa Press, 2000.

MORO, ALDO (1916–1978) On March 16, 1978, members of the radical Red Brigades kidnapped Aldo Moro, former prime minister of Italy and president of Christian Democracy, Italy’s then-majority political party. The kidnappers stopped Moro’s car and its police escort vehicle in Rome, killing five bodyguards in a fusillade from automatic weapons, then dragging Moro into a getaway car. Over the next 55 days, the Red Brigades released nine bulletins detailing their “interrogation” of Moro, detailing his supposed criticism of “the Imperialist State of the Multinationals” and demanding release of imprisoned radicals in exchange for his safe return. Moro also wrote 86 letters to his family, Pope Paul VI, and Christian Democracy

M O R O, A L D O

leaders, some highly critical of his own party. When Italian authorities refused to negotiate, the kidnappers shot Moro on May 9 and left his corpse in the trunk of a car, directing police to the site with a telephone call. Aldo Moro was born in Paglie on September 23, 1916, and graduated from high school in Taranto before studying law at University of Bari, obtaining his degree in 1939. He taught law for the next two decades, while developing an interest in politics. In 1946, as a member of Christian Democracy, he was elected to Italy’s Constitutional Assembly, aiding in revision of the national constitution through 1948. That same year saw him elected Red Brigade terrorists killed Italian politician Aldo to the Chamber of Deputies, Moro in March 1978. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty while serving as vice minister Images) of foreign affairs under Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi. Reelected to parliament in 1953, Moro also served as minister of justice under Prime Minister Antonio Segni (1955–1957), and as minister of education under successors Adone Zoli and Amintore Fanfani (1957–1959). Moro remained near the seat of power in years to come, as prime minister (1963–1968 and 1974–1976) and minister of foreign affairs (1964–1965, 1969–1972, and 1973–1974). In his second term as prime minister, Moro forged a “historic compromise” between his party and Italian communists to create a coalition government. Critics responded by implicating him in the Lockheed bribery scandal—involving political payoffs to facilitate sale of C-130 Hercules transport aircraft—but Moro was officially exonerated on March 3, 1978, two weeks before his kidnapping. Ten Red Brigades members were identified as participants in Moro’s abduction and murder. Two, Alessio Casimirri and Alvaro Lojacono, fled the country and were never apprehended. Two captured in 1978—Conrad Alumni and Marina Zoni—received 50-year prison terms. Police arrested three more in 1979, including Adriana Faranda (sentenced to 15 years), Prospero Gallinari (sentenced to life, paroled for health reasons in 1994. and Valerio Morucci

337

338

M O R O, A L D O

(sentenced to life, released in 1994). Confessed triggerman Mario Moretti remained at large until 1981, then received six life sentences but was paroled in 1998. Barbara Balzerani, arrested in 1985, received a life term and was paroled in 2006. Rita Algranati, extradited from Egypt in 2004, remains in custody at the time of this writing. Conspiracy theories surrounding Moro’s murder include accusations directed at the secret Masonic lodge Propaganda Due (P2), linked to terrorist activities worldwide and sometimes described as a “shadow state” within Italy. Other students of the case claim that the Red Brigades were infiltrated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or by agents of NATO’s “Operation Gladio,” ostensibly to discredit leftist elements and the Soviet Union by promoting random acts of terrorism. In 2005, former Christian Democracy vice-secretary

RED BRIGADES Founded in 1970, the Brigate Rosse (“Red Brigades”) was a leftist organization based in Italy, initially pledged to creation of a “revolutionary state” and Italy’s withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Modeled on Latin American guerrilla movements, the movement’s motto was embodied in the title of its official newspaper: Mai piu Senza Fusile (“Never without a Gun”). The Red Brigades began their campaign of armed struggle by sabotaging factories and staged their first kidnapping—of a factory foreman—in 1972. The group committed its first homicides in June 1974, killing two members of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement in Padua. Police captured Red Brigades founders Renato Curcio and Alberto Franceschini three months later, resulting in 18-year prison terms. Notoriety from that case helped the group expand, and its activities expanded into robbery, drug, and arms trafficking. Rightwing extremist groups responded in kind, sparking an era known in Italy as the “Years of Lead,” with some 2,000 murders, plus thousands of bombings, armed robberies, kidnappings, nonfatal shootings, and other terrorist actions through 1981. In that year, the Red Brigades split into two rival factions, the Communist Combatant Party (PCC) and the Union of Combatant Communists (UCC). Both apparently dissolved in 1988, but a new incarnation—the Red Brigades-PCC—claimed credit for two political murders in 2002–2003. Five members received life prison terms for those slayings in June 2005. In October 2007, police charged former Red Brigades commander Cristoforo Piancone with stealing −C170,000 in a bank robbery, while he was free on a “good conduct” parole from a previous conviction.

MOSCONE, GEORGE RICHARD

Giovanni Galloni claimed that Moro, prior to his abduction, had described infiltration and manipulation of the Red Brigades by CIA agents and operatives of Israel’s Mossad intelligence network. Similar charges of infiltration have been labeled at traditional Italian crime syndicates, including the Sicilian Mafia and Calabria’s ‘Ndrangheta, although neither qualifies as a left-wing or revolutionary organization. Further Reading Alexander, Yonah, and Dennis Pluchinsky. Europe’s Red Terrorists: The Fighting Communist Organizations. London: Routledge, 1992. Drake, Richard. The Aldo Moro Murder Case. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Katz, Robert. Days of Wrath: The Ordeal of Aldo Moro, the Kidnapping, the Execution, the Aftermath. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980. Sciasia, Leonardo. The Moro Affair. New York: New York Review Books, 1978.

MOSCONE, GEORGE RICHARD (1929–1978) On November 27, 1978, former San Francisco supervisor Daniel James White entered City Hall to confront Mayor George Moscone. Elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1977, White had resigned on November 10, after quarreling with rival Supervisor Harvey Milk over placement of a city rehab center in White’s district. (White had previously angered Milk by casting the only vote against San Francisco’s new gay-rights ordinance, a project championed by Milk.) White changed his mind about resigning on November 14, seeking reappointment to the board, and although the mayor initially agreed, Milk and others persuaded Moscone to pick liberal candidate Don Horzany. White’s appearance at City Hall coincided with the date of Horzany’s scheduled appointment, a ceremony delayed when White shot Moscone and Milk at close range, killing both instantly. White fled the scene, then surrendered at a nearby police station. At trial, he pled diminished capacity due to depression. Jurors convicted White on a reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter in May 1979, sparking “White Night riots” by gays who regarded the shootings as premeditated hate crimes. Paroled on January 7, 1984, after serving five years of a seven-year sentence, White committed suicide at home on October 21, 1985. George Moscone was a San Francisco native, born on November 24, 1939, the son of a state prison guard. He graduated from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and entered private practice in 1956. Four years later, friends in the Democratic Party encouraged him to seek a seat in the California State Assembly, and although Moscone lost that race, he won a seat on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors in 1963. Based on his reputation of support for racial minorities, the poor, and small business owners, he next won a state senate seat, in 1966. There, party members chose him to serve

339

340

MOSCONE, GEORGE RICHARD

Mayor George Moscone was assassinated by retired Supervisor of the Board, Dan White on November 27, 1978. (Bettmann/Corbis)

as Majority Leader. Voters reelected Moscone to the senate in 1970 and 1974. His most noteworthy achievement was a bill repealing California’s old sodomy law, which gave him a crucial advantage in San Francisco’s 1975 mayoral race. Unexpected support in that campaign came from the People’s Temple, an ostensibly liberal church with a mostly black congregation, led by white minister James Warren Jones. In return for that support, which helped carry certain minority precincts by 12-to-1 margins over Moscone’s Republican rival, Moscone appointed Jones as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Commission. That move backfired in August 1977, when a media investigation of the Temple revealed apparent criminal activity. Jones and most of his followers decamped to Guyana, where the sect—now branded a cult—committed mass suicide nine days before Moscone’s murder in San Francisco. While the initial investigation was still under way, defeated mayoral candidate John Barbagelata agitated for a recall vote against Moscone, but Moscone easily survived that challenge. Dan White’s criminal defense at trial included claims that a change in his diet, from healthy food to Twinkies and other sugary snacks, exacerbated his depression and made him prone to explosive violence. Whatever its impact on the jury, derisive comments concerning the “Twinkie defense” certainly stimulated public condemnation of California’s statute concerning diminished

M O S H A R R A F, K H A L E D

capacity. New claims of premeditation on White’s part surfaced in 1998, when homicide detective Frank Falzon related White’s admission of plans to kill two other supervisors who escaped his wrath in November 1978. According to Falzon, White said, “I was on a mission. I wanted four of them. Carol Ruth Silver, she was the biggest snake . . . and Willie Brown, he was masterminding the whole thing.” At no time in that interview did White express remorse. Further Reading Hincle, Warren. Gayslayer! The Story of How Dan White Killed Harvey Milk and George Moscone & Got Away With Murder. Las Vegas, NV: Silver Dollar Publishers, 1979. Weiss, Mike. Double Play: The San Francisco City Hall Killings. Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1984.

MOSHARRAF, KHALED (1938–1975) On November 6, 1975, Brigadier General Khaled Mosharraf of the Bangladesh army staged an inspection visit of the 10th East Bengal Regiment’s Dhaka cantonment, accompanied by Colonels A.T.M. Haider and Najmul Huda. Less than three months earlier, a military coup had toppled the regime of President Mujibur Rahman, killing Rahman and most of his family, plunging Bangladesh into political turmoil. General Mosharraf had led a coup against civilian rule on November 3, and was anxious to confirm the loyalty of his troops three days later, but they had a surprise in store for him. At 11:00 A.M. on November 7, soldiers of the 10th East Bengal Regiment seized Mosharraf, Haider and Huda, summarily executing all three. Khaled Mosharraf was born in 1938 at Mosharrafganj, a village in Bengal Province of then-British India (subsequently East Pakistan). He graduated from Dhaka College in 1955 and immediately joined the Pakistan army, attending its Military Academy in Kakul. During the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War, he was promoted to adjutant of 4th Bengal Regiment, later receiving additional training in Britain and West Germany before serving as an instructor at the Kakul academy. Soon afterward, dissatisfaction in East Pakistan prompted secession, with a declaration of independence for the new state of Bangladesh announced on March 26, 1971. Mosharraf had assumed command of the 4th Bengal Regiment’s Comilla Cantonment two days earlier, and he led that unit in support of the rebellion against Pakistan. Wounded seriously during the ensuing war of liberation, Mosharraf and was appointed as staff officer at the Bangladesh army’s Dhaka headquarters in December 1971. Promoted to brigadier general, he soon rose to become the chief of General Staff and was honored with the country’s second-highest award—Bir Uttom (“Better among Braves”)—for his wartime service.

341

342

M O U N T BAT T E N, LO U I S FR A N C I S A L B E R T V I C TO R N I C H O L A S G E O RG E

Following President Rahman’s assassination in August 1975, successor Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad promulgated an Indemnity Act on September 26, exempting Rahman’s killers from prosecution. That move enraged Mosharraf and provoked his coup of November 3, cut short by his death during the countercoup of November 7. During his brief uprising, Mosharraf arrested and detained future president Ziaur Rahman, then a major general, but following Mosharraf’s death, Ziaur Rahman was freed and named to serve as army chief of staff. Six years later, Rahman’s presidential term would be cut short by another military coup, resulting in his death. Although no one was charged with killing General Mosharraf, suspicion fell on Lieutenant Colonel Mohiuddin Ahmed of the 2nd Field Artillery Regiment, also suspected as a ringleader in President Rahman’s assassination. Repeal of the Indemnity Act in November 1996 paved the way for Ahmed’s prosecution in that case, although it finally required amendment of the national constitution to land him in court. Convicted of Rahman’s murder, Ahmed was executed on January 28, 2010. Further Reading Baxter, Craig. Bangladesh: From a Nation to a State. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997. Sisson, Richard, and Leo Rose. War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

MOUNTBATTEN, LOUIS FRANCIS ALBERT VICTOR NICHOLAS GEORGE (1900–1979) In August 1979, Lord Louis Mountbatten joined family and friends at his traditional summer retreat in Mullaghmore, a small village in County Sligo, Republic of Ireland, located only 12 miles from the border of strife-torn Northern Ireland. Officers of Garda Síochána—the Irish national police—warned Mountbatten of potential danger from border-crossing members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), but Mountbatten dismissed their concerns. On August 27, Mountbatten and six companions went sailing on Donegal Bay, in the 30-foot Shadow V. When they were several hundred yards offshore, a 50-pound bomb exploded on board, demolishing the vessel and dumping its occupants into the bay. Local fisherman rushed to the rescue and found Mountbatten still alive, but he died before reaching shore. Others fatally injured included Baroness Doreen Knatchbull, 83-year-old mother-in-law of Mountbatten’s elder daughter; Nicholas Knatchbull, Mountbatten’s 14-year-old grandson; and 15-year-old crew member Paul Maxwell. Survivors included Nicholas Knatchbull’s parents and his twin brother Timothy. A PIRA spokesmen claimed credit for the blast,

M O U N T B AT T E N , L O U I S F R A N C I S A L B E R T V I C T O R N I C H O L A S G E O R G E

saying: “This operation is one of the discriminate ways we can bring to the attention of the English people the continuing occupation of our country.” Louis Mountbatten was born in Windsor, England, as His Serene Highness Prince Louis of Battenberg, on June 25, 1900. His father, Prince Louis Alexander of Battenberg, served 45 years in the British Navy, rising to First Sea Lord of the Admiralty in 1912, but subsequent hostilities with Germany forced his demotion and retirement. In 1917, Britain’s royal family cut all overt German ties and changed their surname to Windsor. Prince Louis Alexander then became Louis Mountbatten, Marquess of Milford Haven, and his son became Lord Louis Mountbatten. Tutored at home to age 10, young Louis later attended Britain’s Naval Cadet School and joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman in World War I. Following the armistice, he studied engineering at Christ’s College, Cambridge, followed by training at the Portsmouth Signal School in 1924, before he returned to the navy. In 1926, he was appointed assistant fleet wireless and signals officer of the Mediterranean Fleet, promoted three years later to senior wireless instructor. His first command, of a destroyer in the Pacific, came in 1934. Two years later, Mountbatten was appointed to the Admiralty at Whitehall as a member of the Fleet Air Arm. Lord Mountbatten served with distinction and controversy during World War II, first as commander of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla. German bombers sank his ship, HMS Kelly, during the evacuation of Crete, on May 23, 1941. Five months later, he was named to serve as chief of Combined Operations Headquarters, a post from which he organized the bungled Dieppe Raid of August 19, 1942, sacrificing 3,367 Canadian troops in a futile invasion of occupied France. Another of Mountbatten’s brainstorms, “Project Habakkuk,” sought to construct an invincible aircraft carrier from “pykrete”—a mixture of wood pulp and ice—which was ultimately “found to be impractical because of the enormous production resources required and technical difficulties involved.” Despite those failures, Prime Minister Winston Churchill named Mountbatten as Supreme Allied Commander of the South East Asia Command in October 1943; he remained in that post until the unit was dissolved in November 1946. From there, Mountbatten was appointed as the last viceroy and governorgeneral of India, charged with supervising the transition from British India to an independent nation by 1948. In fact, Indian independence was achieved in August 1947, but for an unexpected cause, as Muslim portions of the country seceded to become East and West Pakistan. Winston Churchill, formerly a great admirer of Mountbatten, was so angered by the viceroy’s roll in severing a major portion of the British Empire that the two men never spoke again. From India, Mountbatten moved on to command a cruiser squadron in the Mediterranean Fleet (1948–1950), served as Fourth Sea Lord of the Admiralty (1950–1952), as commander in chief of the Mediterranean Fleet (1952–1955), and, finally, in his father’s old post as First Sea Lord of the Admiralty (1955–1959).

343

344

MUSSOLINI, BENITO AMILCARE ANDREA

Later, in civilian life, he served as president of the United World Colleges Organization (1968–1978) and as governor of the Isle of Wight (1969–1974). In a life of historic attainments, it comes as no surprise that Lord Mountbatten also had detractors. Philip Ziegler, author of Mountbatten’s official biography, wrote: “His vanity, though child-like, was monstrous, his ambition unbridled. The truth, in his hands, was swiftly converted from what it was, to what it should have been. He sought to rewrite history with cavalier indifference to the facts to magnify his own achievements. There was a time when I became so enraged by what I began to feel was his determination to hoodwink me that I found it necessary to place on my desk a notice saying: REMEMBER, IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING, HE WAS A GREAT MAN.” Following Mountbatten’s assassination, authorities identified the bomber as PIRA member Thomas McMahon, who crept aboard the Shadow V the night before its final sail, to plant a radio-controlled bomb. Ironically, McMahon was arrested two hours before the explosion, by Garda officers who suspected him of driving a stolen car. Forensics experts found flecks of paint from the boat and traces of nitroglycerine on his clothes, resulting in McMahon’s conviction and imposition of a life prison term on November 23, 1979. He was released in 1988, under the Good Friday Agreement crafted to advance the Northern Ireland peace process. Further Reading Butler, David. Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy. New York: Pocket Books, 1986. Knatchbull, Timothy. From a Clear Blue Sky: Surviving the Mountbatten Bomb. London: Hutchinson, 2009. Ziegler, Philip. Mountbatten: The Official Biography. Glasgow: William Collins, 1985.

MUSSOLINI, BENITO AMILCARE ANDREA (1883–1945) On April 27, 1945, fugitive Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, were captured by communist partisans near the village of Dongo, Lombardy. At the time, the couple was en route to Switzerland, hoping to catch a flight to Spain and seek asylum from Generalisimo Francisco Franco. When caught, Mussolini wore a German military uniform, in an attempt to disguise himself, but he was recognized by Urbano Lazzaro, political commissar of the 52nd Garibaldi Brigade. Mussolini and Petacci were transported to Mezzegra, on Lake Como, and then—on April 28—to the village of Giulino di Mezzegra. There, members of the partisans’ National Liberation Committee ordered Walter Audisio to execute the prisoners. Two pistols misfired before Audisio tried a French MAS-38 submachine gun and succeeded in killing both captives. Their corpses were driven to Milan on April 29, and dumped at a site where 15

MUSSOLINI, BENITO AMILCARE ANDREA

antifascists had recently been executed. There, a mob beat and stoned the bodies, hanging them from meat hooks. Born on July 29, 1883, a native of Predappio, in the Italian province of Forlì-Cesena, Benito Mussolini was the son of a revolutionary socialist whose views incorporated elements of anarchism. At age 19, Mussolini emigrated to Switzerland in a bid to avoid military service, and was arrested in Bern the following year (1903) for inciting workers during a violent general strike. Meanwhile, in Italy, he was convicted of desertion in absentia, but returned to take advantage of an amnesty in 1904, then spent two Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress years in the army before findwere slain by partisans in April 1945. (Getty ing work as a teacher. Images) Between 1909 and 1914, Mussolini turned his hand to journalism, in support of the Italian Socialist Party, but that group expelled him for supporting Italian participation in World War I. Mussolini thereupon denounced socialism, attached himself to the new Revolutionary Fasci for International Action movement, and joined the Italian army once more. His new right-wing stance impressed Britain’s Security Service sufficiently for agent Samuel Hoare to recruit him as an agent for the sum of £100 per week (£6,400 today, or $10,172). In March 1919, Mussolini organized a 200-man “Italian Combat Squad” in Milan, donning black-shirted uniforms and rapidly recruiting thousands more in the unsettled atmosphere of postwar Italy. Later renamed the National Fascist Party, Mussolini’s group marched on to Rome in October 1922, deposed Prime Minister Luigi Facta, and accepted King Victor Emmanuel III’s invitation for Mussolini to serve as prime minister. Through a combination of terrorism and legislation passed by a servile parliament, Mussolini soon emerged as Italy’s dictator—Il Duce (“The Leader”). His rapid and violent ascent naturally provoked opposition in kind, including several foiled assassination attempts. The first attempt, on April 7, 1926, was made by Violet Gibson, an Irish woman, who fired three shots at Mussolini

345

346

MUSSOLINI, BENITO AMILCARE ANDREA

following his address to an assembly of the International Congress of Surgeons. Her bullets left Mussolini “slightly wounded in the nose,” and police prevented a mob from lynching Gibson on the spot. Deported to Britain after Mussolini declined to press charges, Gibson spent the rest of her life in a mental institution, dying there in May 1926. Four months later, on September 11, 1926, anarchist Gino Lucetti threw a bomb at Mussolini’s car in Rome, as Il Duce drove through the Porta Pia gate. The explosion failed to injure Mussolini, and Lucetti was quickly captured. Sentenced to 30 years in June 1927, Lucetti escaped from prison in 1943, but died soon afterward, during a German air raid on Ischia. A month after Lucetti’s bungled bombing, on October 31, 15-year-old anarchist Anteo Zamboni tried to shoot Mussolini in Bologna. His shots missed, and this time police made no effort to restrain the vengeful mob that lynched Zamboni. Mussolini used the second murder attempt as an excuse to abolish civil liberties and dissolve Italy’s remaining opposition parties. Today, a street in Bologna bears Zamboni’s name. Yet another anarchist, Michele Schirru, plotted to kill Mussolini in January 1931, but he had no more luck than his predecessors. Arrested on February 3, before making an actual attempt, Schirru attempted suicide, but merely wounded himself in the face. Convicted and condemned by a special court on May 28, he was executed by a firing squad the following day. In his bid to create a new Roman Empire, Mussolini launched an invasion of Ethiopia in October 1935, securing control of the country by May 1936. Two months later, he sent troops to aid Francisco Franco’s Falangist forces in toppling Spain’s republican government. Although initially opposed to the overt racism of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party, Mussolini overcame his qualms in time to sign a “Pact of Steel” with Germany, creating the Rome–Berlin Axis in May 1939. Hitler’s invasion of Poland sparked World War II four months later, with Japan subsequently joining the Axis in a bid for world domination. The tide of Axis victories faltered and died in 1942, with Allied advances in North Africa, Russia, and the Pacific. In Italy, growing dissatisfaction with fascist rule and the presence of German troops prompted a wave of strikes in March 1943. Four months later, Allied troops invaded Sicily, putting Italian troops to flight. On July 24, five days after a crisis meeting with Hitler in northern Italy, the Grand Council of Fascism returned a no-confidence vote against Mussolini, asking Victor Emmanuel III to resume full control of the country. That same afternoon, the king ordered Mussolini’s arrest and replaced him with Marshal Pietro Badoglio. Two days later, Badoglio dissolved the Fascist Party and began negotiating an armistice with the Allies, signed on September 3. German troops fought on in Italy, and Badoglio raised troops of partisans to expel them.

MUSSOLINI, BENITO AMILCARE ANDREA

Nine days after Italy’s surrender, on September 12, 1943, German commandos rescued Mussolini from captivity at the Hotel Campo Imperatore, at Gran Sasso d’Italia. Adolf Hitler planned to arrest Victor Emmanuel III and Marshal Badoglio, but they eluded him while Allied forces proceeded with the liberation of Italy. Under pressure from Hitler, Mussolini returned to Italy, acting under Nazi orders to revive his fascist government. On arrival, he announced, “I am not here to renounce even a square meter of state territory. We will go back to war for this. And we will rebel against anyone for this. Where the Italian flag flew, the Italian flag will return. And where it has not been lowered, now that I am here, no one will have it lowered. I have said these things to the Führer.” Over the next two years, Mussolini lived at Gargnano, on Lake Garda, operating as a puppet of Berlin. He supervised the executions of former fascists who had turned against him, but was fatalistic in his outlook, telling an interviewer in January 1945, “Seven years ago, I was an interesting person. Now, I am little more than a corpse. Yes, madam, I am finished. My star has fallen. I have no fight left in me. I work and I try, yet know that all is but a farce. I await the end of the tragedy and—strangely detached from everything—I do not feel any more an actor. I feel I am the last of spectators.” Following his execution and the desecration of his corpse, Mussolini was buried in an unmarked grave north of Milan. Neo-fascists located the grave and stole his body on Easter Sunday 1946, leaving a message at the site that read: “Finally, O Duce, you are with us. We will cover you with roses, but the smell of your virtue will overpower the smell of those roses.” Authorities recovered Mussolini’s remains in August 1946 and held them for 10 months, before he was interred at his birthplace in Predappio. His crypt is flanked by marble fasces and an idealized sculpture of Il Duce in life. Mussolini’s political philosophy and melodramatic mode of self-expression made him a target of satire in life, beginning with Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 film The Great Dictator. Chaplin starred as tyrant “Adenoid Hynkel,” clearly modeled on Adolf Hitler, and co-star Jack Oakie mocked Mussolini in the role of “Benzino Napaloni.” A year later, Il Duce was also lampooned by the Three Stooges in I’ll Never Heil Again, with Cy Schindell appearing as “Chizzolini,” in conjunction with dictator-ally “Moe Hailstone” (played by Moe Howard), “Field Marshal Herring” (Curly Howard), and Larry Fine cast as a minister of propaganda modeled on Joseph Goebbels. Serious portrayals of Mussolini on-screen include two by Rod Steiger in Mussolini: The Last Act (1974) and Lion of the Desert (1981). Other portrayals include Mussolini: The Untold Story (1985), produced for television with George C. Scott in the title role; Mussolini and I (1985), with Bob Hoskins cast as Il Duce and Susan Sarandon portraying his daughter; Benito (1993) with Antonio Bander, which depicts Mussolini’s early years from his service as a

347

348

MUSSOLINI, BENITO AMILCARE ANDREA

FASCISM Although definitions of fascism vary, most sources agree that its major tenets include extreme right-wing nationalism, an authoritarian or totalitarian state, aggressive militarism, xenophobia and racism, enforcement of societal conformity, and state control or domination of a “mixed economy” (with regulation shared by government and wealthy private interests). Whereas fascism’s ideology has its roots in the late 19th century, the first self-styled fascist party appeared in October 1914, when a breakaway faction of the Italian Socialist Party created the Revolutionary Fascio for International Action. Fascism draws its name from the Latin fasces (“bundle”)—specifically a bundle of birch rods surrounding a bronze axe, carried as a symbol of authority in ancient Rome. Variant forms of fascism include German National Socialism (Nazism) and its successor ideologies, as well as Spanish Falangism, exemplified by dictator Francisco Franco. The Great Depression of the 1930s encouraged fascism’s spread, rejuvenating the economies of various nations through militarization and foreign conquest, seizing upon author Randolph Bourne’s assertion that “war is the health of the state.” Fascism survived the defeat of the Axis Powers in World War II, surviving for decades in Spain and Portugal, in Latin America (where fugitive Nazis found refuge), and elsewhere as Allied victors actively encouraged far-right military governments in opposition to communism. Fascism also influenced the postwar apartheid regime in South Africa, and various anti-Israeli groups in the Middle East, including Lebanon’s Kataeb or Phalange Party, and the revolutionary Arab nationalist philosophy known as Ba’athism, adapted by dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

teacher to the outbreak of World War I; and Tea with Mussolini (1999) with Claudio Spadaro’s appearance as the dictator. Further Reading Bosworth, R.J.B. Mussolini. New York: Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2011. Finaldi, Giuseppe. Mussolini and Italian Fascism. Harlow, United Kingdom: Pearson Education Limited, 2008. Garibaldi, Luciano. Mussolini: The Secrets of his Death. New York: Enigma Books, 2004. Hibbert, Christopher. Mussolini: The Rise and Fall of Il Duce. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

MUSSOLINI, BENITO AMILCARE ANDREA

Morgan, Philip. The Fall of Mussolini: Italy, the Italians, and the Second World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Moseley, Ray. Mussolini: The Last 600 Days of Il Duce. Dallas: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2004. Saunders, Frances. The Woman Who Shot Mussolini. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2010.

349

This page intentionally left blank

N ¯ DER SHA ¯ H AFSHA ¯ R (1688–1747) NA In June 1747, Na¯der Sha¯h Afsha¯r—renowned as the “Napoleon of Persia” and the “Second Alexander”—set off from Tabriz, then capital of Persia (now Iran), to purge Kurdish rebels from the northeastern province of Khorasan. By the time his army reached Fathabad, Na¯der had learned that one of his offices—in fact, his nephew—was plotting to depose him. Fearing that other officers had joined in the conspiracy, Na¯der planned a preemptive strike, quietly recruiting Turkmen and Uzbek soldiers from his ranks to massacre the Persian officers on the night of June 19. Unknown to Na¯der, one of his Georgian slaves heard the order given and reported it to the shah’s would-be victims. An officer named Salah Beg (or Bey) volunteered to kill Na¯der before the shah’s assassins could strike. Leading several confederates to Na¯der’s tent, Beg attacked, killing two of shah’s attendants before Na¯der confronted them with his saber in hand. Although wounded in the first exchange of blows, Na¯der fought on, killing two of his assailants, before he tripped on a tent rope and fell. Na¯der reportedly pled for his life, whereupon Beg replied, “You have not shown any mercy, and therefore merit none,” then beheaded the shah with a single sword stroke. Accounts of Na¯der Shah’s birth are confused, with reported dates ranging from October 22, 1687, to August 6, 1698. Most agree that he was born in the fortress at Dastgerd, in Khorasan Province, and named Na¯der Kouli. His family belonged to the Qereqlu clan of the seminomadic Afshar tribe, a subgroup of the Oghuz Turks. His father, a herdsman, died when Na¯der was 13. Four years later, a band of Uzbek Tartar marauders enslaved Na¯der and his mother, but Na¯der soon escaped, joining a rival band of outlaws. Despite his youth, based on ferocity and cunning, Na¯der rose to lead the gang, while his mother languished and died in captivity. Tiring of life as a fugitive by 1712, Na¯der approached a local chieftain, Baba Ali Beg (or Baig), to seek employment. Beg retained him as a courier, delivering messages to the royal court at Isfahan with a companion, but Na¯der was determined to be the chief’s sole messenger. On one trip to the shah’s court, Beg killed his coworker, then pled self-defense before Sultan Shah Hussein and received a pardon. Chief Beg was less forgiving, when Na¯der returned alone, and Na¯der surmised that he was marked for execution. Speaking either from the heart or from self-interest, Na¯der proposed marriage to one of Beg’s

352

N A¯ D E R S H A¯ H A F S H A¯ R

daughters, but the chief refused him. Na¯der then followed a practice that became his trademark, striking first to kill Beg, before fleeing to the mountains with his fiancée (some accounts say two). Other servants of the late chief followed Na¯der, forming his latest bandit gang to terrorize Mazandaran Province. After two years of looting and murder, in 1714, Na¯der offered his services to Babulu Khan, the governor of Khorasan Province. He proved himself in battle against Tartar invaders, and by 1717 was placed in command of a 6,000-man army, defeating a Tartar force that outnumbered his troops nearly two to one. Idolizing Mongol warlords Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, Na¯der secured his triumph with a combination of audacity and strategic planning that set him apart from other regional commanders of the day. When he demanded promotion to a general’s rank, however, Babulu Khan put him off, first requiring that Na¯der seek approval from Shah Sultan Hussein, then promoting a younger, less experienced officer in his place. When Na¯der accused Babulu Khan of acting dishonorably, he was subjected to falaka—a form of torture where the victim is placed in stocks and beaten across the soles of his feet—then exiled in disgrace. Na¯der returned immediately to a life of crime, leading a band of some 800 brigands to loot villages in Khorasan Province, later extracting tribute payments to ward off future pillage. In March 1722, Afghan invaders led by Mahmud Hotaki defeated Persian troops at the Battle of Gulnabad and captured Sultan Hussein; they then moved on from there to besiege and capture the Safavid Empire’s capital at Isfahan. In Khorasan Province, Na¯der feigned subservience to the new Afghan governor, Malek Mahmud, then raised an army to revolt against the intruders. A long war ensued, Na¯der joining forces with the sons of Sultan Hussein, defeating larger Afghan forces in a series of engagements at Herat (May 1729), Damghan (September 1729), and Murchakhort (November 1729). Afghans were not Na¯der’s only enemies, however. In the spring of 1730, he attacked Ottomans who had seized part of Persia after the Afghan invasion, recapturing most of his homeland’s lost territory by 1733. In the process, he also schemed to assassinate fellow general Fateh Ali Khan Khajar, a favorite of Sultan Hussein’s son, Shah Tehmas. Tehmas then favored Na¯der with the title of “Khan,” but Na¯der’s gratitude did not extend to the royal family at large. At odds with another of Hussein’s sons, appointed successor Shah Tahmasp, Na¯der lured Tahmasp into a drinking contest in 1732, then mocked him before the royal court, asking if a drunkard was fit to rule Persia. Rather than risk his life in a war against Na¯der, Tahmasp abdicated in favor of his infant son, Abbas III, whom Na¯der served as regent and de facto ruler. When Abbas died in 1736, Na¯der ascended to the throne as shah, hailed on newly minted coins as “King of Kings and Glory of the Age.” Unsatisfied with the scope of his realm, Na¯der raised an army of 80,000 men and marched for India in December 1736. He captured Kandahar in March

NADIR SHAH, MOHAMMED

1738, razing that city in the process, building a new town nearby, which he named “Na¯derabad.” From there, he moved on to capture Ghazni, Kabul, Peshawar, Sindh, and Lahore, then crossed the Indus River, killing an estimated 20,000 Indian soldiers at the Battle of Karnal, in February 1739. A month later, amid false rumors that Na¯der had been assassinated, his troops entered Delhi, killing 200,000 men, women, and children in the nation’s capital. Captive ruler Mohammad Shah surrendered the keys to his national treasury, and suffered further humiliation when Na¯der seized the empire’s famed Peacock Throne. English historians estimate that Na¯der’s total haul from the Indian campaign was valued in excess of £85.5 million at the time (£6.7 trillion today, or $7.1 trillion). While looting India, Na¯der left his son Reza Qoli Mirza to rule Persia. Believing rumors of his father’s death in battle, Mirza laid plans to rule in his own right, then saw them dashed when Na¯der returned alive. Mirza then hired an Afghan to assassinate his father, but the sniper missed his shot, only wounding Na¯der in the arm. A full-scale inquisition followed, exposing Mirza’s treachery. Na¯der showed his version of mercy to Mirza, sparing his life, but having his firstborn blinded and castrated. So it went, with successive purges of Na¯der’s royal court and army, until none of his closest advisors felt they could trust him. After his assassination, nephew Ali Qoli claimed the Persian throne, renaming himself Adil Shah (“righteous king”). A likely suspect in the plot to kill his uncle, Adil Shah was deposed in June 1748 and was blinded by coup leader Ebrahim Mirza. Six months later, Na¯der’s grandson Shahrukh toppled Mirza and had him blinded, and Adil Shah was tortured to death. Further Reading Axworthy, Michael. The Sword of Persia: Nader Shah, from Tribal Warrior to Conquering Tyrant. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006. Floor, Willem. The Rise and Fall of Nader Shah: Dutch East India Company Reports, 1730–1747. Waldorf, MD: Mage Publishers, 2009. Tucker, Ernest. Nadir Shah’s Quest for Legitimacy in Post-SafavidIran. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006.

NADIR SHAH, MOHAMMED (1883–1933) On November 8, 1933, King Mohammed Nadir Shah attended a high school graduation ceremony in Kabul, Afghanistan. The occasion was routine, although the king may have experienced some tension. Five months earlier, on June 6, his older half-brother—Prince Sirdar Mohammed Aziz Kha¯n, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Germany—had been assassinated in Berlin by a 27-year-old Afghan student. Now, in the midst of minor pomp and circumstance, the king

353

354

NADIR SHAH, MOHAMMED

met a similar fate, gunned down at point-blank range by teenage student Abdul Khaliq Hazara. Guards captured Hazara at the scene, quickly discovering that he had sought revenge for the execution of his father, ordered by the king in 1932. After 40 days of torture, Hazara was condemned to public execution. A sword wielding executioner demanded to know which finger he had used to pull the pistol’s trigger, which eye he had aimed with, and with which foot he stepped forward prior to firing. When Hazara answered, the executioner cut off that finger and foot, gouged out his eye, then proceeded to dismember him alive. Several relatives of the assassin were also tortured and hanged as suspected accomplices to the king’s slaying. Mohammed Nadir Shah was born on April 9, 1883, at Dehradun India, then subject to the British Raj. He was a member of the Mohammadzai clan (“sons of Mohammed” in Pashto), grandson of Sultan Mohammed Kha¯n Telai (1795–1861), who served as chief minister of Afghanistan during 1824–1826. At age 18, Nadir returned to his ancestral homeland and joined the Afghan army, rising through the ranks to serve as a general under King Ama¯nulla¯h Kha¯n during the brief Third Anglo-Afghan War (May 6 to August 8, 1919). Following the armistice in that conflict, Ama¯nulla¯h Kha¯n named Nader as his minister of war. King Ama¯nulla¯h, meanwhile, embarked on a course of reform designed to modernize Afghanistan, including establishment of a small air force staffed by pilots from the newly emergent Soviet Union. At the same time, Ama¯nulla¯h changed recruiting standards for the army, stripping tribal leaders of their influence on the selection of recruits. Turkish advisors urged the king to retire his older army officers, promoting younger and more professional replacements; Nadir objected, counseling mindfulness of longstanding tribal traditions. When Ama¯nulla¯h spurned his advice, in 1924, Nadir resigned as minister of war and left Afghanistan to serve as its ambassador to France. In Nadir’s absence, during 1927, Ama¯nulla¯h embarked on an extended tour of Europe, collecting even more ideas for the improvement of his country. Shortly after his return, in November 1928, dissident Shinwari tribesmen rebelled in Jalalabad and marched on Kabul, prompting many royal troops to desert and join the revolt. On January 14, 1929, Ama¯nulla¯h abdicated in favor of elder brother Inayatullah Kha¯n, who ruled as king for three days, then fled to exile in Europe. Kabul fell on January 17 to Habibulla¯h Kalaka¯ni, a Tajik tribesman who ruled as Emir of Afghanistan until October 16, 1929, when troops led by Nadir Khan recaptured Kabul. Nadir installed himself as king that same day, hanging Kalaka¯ni, his brother, and 10 other rebel leaders on November 1. Nadir’s four-year reign as king was an exercise in despotism. His first act involved abolition of most reforms imposed by Ama¯nulla¯h Kha¯n, which strengthened tribal leaders to Nadir’s detriment. The royal army, though triumphant over Habibulla¯h Kalaka¯ni, remained relatively weak by comparison to tribal forces still resentful of the monarchy and its ties to the Soviet Union. One

NARUTOWICZ, GABRIEL

Uzbek leader’s raids across the Russian border prompted a Soviet incursion in April 1930, and before year’s end, Nadir faced uprisings by Tajiks in Kabul Province, as well as Shinwari rebellions farther south. Most were subdued by late 1931, by Nadir’s growing army, but the king’s ruthless tactics aggravated tribal dissatisfaction in the countryside. In Kabul, meanwhile, Nadir organized a 10-member cabinet and a larger loyajirga (“grand council”) of 286 members who formally confirmed his installment as king. In 1931, Nadir promulgated a new constitution “in the name of Allah the most merciful,” confirming himself as “a fit and worthy King” who was accepted by “the Afghan nation in general . . . with the greatest esteem and respect.” Nadir’s subjects were “free to enjoy all rights conferred by Shariat [Islamic] law,” although they were “required to observe the injunctions and prohibitions of their Government in religious and political matters.” Torture was “absolutely abolished,” at least on paper, and freedom of the press was granted to publications “such as are not against religion.” In practice, conflict with regional tribes continued, and executions of offenders ultimately paved the way for Nadir’s own assassination after four years on the throne. His son and successor, Mohammed Zahir Shah, proved more durable, ruling as Afghanistan’s last monarch from November 8, 1933, until July 17, 1973, when a coup d’état, deposed him. At the time, Zahir was in Italy, undergoing eye surgery. Rather than risk a civil war, he abdicated and remained in exile for the next 29 years, returning to Afghanistan in 2002. While still abroad, in 1991, Zahir survived an assassination attempt by a knife-wielding assailant posing as a Portuguese reporter. Zahir died in Kabul, from natural causes, on July 23, 2007. Further Reading Baker, Kevin. War in Afghanistan: A Short History of Eighty Wars and Conflicts in Afghanistan and the Northwest Frontier, 1839–2011. Kenthurst, NSW, Australia: Rosenberg Publishing, 2011. “How did Nadir accede to the throne?” Afghana! http://afghana.com/SocietyAndCulture/amanula.htm. “Mohammad Na¯der Shah.” Encyclopædia Iranica. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ mohammad-nader-shah-king-of-afghanistan. 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.

NARUTOWICZ, GABRIEL (1865–1922) On December 16, 1922, Gabriel Narutowicz, first president of the Second Polish Republic, visited the Zache˛ta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw. The visit was among his first appearances as president, since he had only been

355

356

NARUTOWICZ, GABRIEL

inaugurated on December 11. While touring the exhibition, Narutowicz was accosted by Eligiusz Niewiadomski, a painter and art critic affiliated since 1904 with the far-right National Democracy movement, pledged to “Polonization” of the country’s German, Ukrainian, and Belarusian ethnic minorities. Drawing a pistol, Niewiadomski shot President Narutowicz three times in the back, killing him instantly, then escaped from the gallery in the ensuing chaos. Police captured Niewiadomski on December 30, and he was quickly condemned, shot by a military firing squad at the Warsaw Citadel on January 31, 1923. Gabriel Narutowicz was born on March 17, 1865, in Telšiai, Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. His father—Jan Narutowicz, a local district judge from Br˙evikiai vikiai—had previously served a year in prison for his role in a January 1863 uprising against Russian imperial rule, and subsequently died with Gabriel was only one year old. Gabriel’s mother raised him and older brother Stanislaw alone, moving the family to Liepa¯ja, Latvia, in 1873, so that her sons would not be forced to attend a Russian school. After completing his secondary education in Liepa¯ja, Gabriel enrolled at St. Petersburg’s Institute for Mathematical Physics, but poor health forced him to withdraw, later attending Zurich’s Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (Federal Polytechnic School) from 1887 to 1891. During his tenure there, Narutowicz helped Polish fugitives from Russia and joined the Proletariat Party, actions that resulted in his being banned from Russia, with an open warrant issued for his arrest. Narutowicz became a Swiss citizen in 1895, and took his first job as an engineer on the St. Gallen railroad, advancing by year’s end to serve as chief of works on the Rhine River. Hired by Kurstein’s technical office in 1896, Narutowicz pioneered electrification in Switzerland and saw his work displayed at that year’s International Exhibition in Paris. He subsequently directed construction of Swiss hydroelectric power plants at Monthey and Mühleberg, plus another at Andelsbuch, Austria. In 1907, he became a professor of engineering at his alma mater, Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule, advancing to serve as dean from 1913 to 1919, doubling as chairman of an international committee for regulation of the Rhine in 1915. In his sparse spare time, during World War I, Narutowicz collaborated with a General Swiss Committee aiding Polish victims of the conflict, and joined La Pologne et la Guerre (“Poland and War”), a relief group based in Lausanne, Switzerland. Strongly influenced by Poland’s postwar chief of state, Józef Piłsudski, Narutowicz received an invitation to Poland in September 1919 and arrived in June 1920 to serve as minister of public works under newly elected prime minister Władysław Grabski. Narutowicz held that post until June 1922, and Grabski was succeeded by rotating prime ministers Wincenty Witos and Antoni Ponikowski. During those two years, although he reduced the Reconstruction Administration’s bloated payroll by 80 percent, Narutowicz supervised rebuilding of 270,000

NARUTOWICZ, GABRIEL

buildings, more than 300 bridges, and 125 miles of highway. During the same hectic period, he oversaw construction of several dams, hydroelectric power plant at Porabka, and extensive work to control Poland’s longest and most important river, the Vistula. As if that were not enough, in April and May 1922 he joined Minister of Foreign Affairs Konstanty Skirmunt at the Genoa Conference, where representatives of 34 countries met to discuss postwar economic collaboration. On June 28, 1922, Narutowicz became minister of foreign affairs under Prime Minister Artur S´liwinski, ´ retaining that post under successor Julian Nowak. In October of that year, he represented Poland at another international conference, held in Tallinn, Estonia. A month later, in Poland’s legislative elections, Narutowicz backed the National Public Union party, seeking a seat in parliament, but failed to carry the vote. In December 1922, Narutowicz expressed surprise over his nomination by the Polish Peasant Party as a presidential candidate, but he accepted despite Józef Piłsudski’s advice to decline. At the time, under Poland’s constitution of 1921, presidents were chosen by the National Assembly. With five candidates in the running, Narutowicz survived four ballots, finally defeating Count Maurycy Klemens Zamoyski on the fifth, with votes from disparate left-wing factions that despised Zamoyski. His victory surprised the right wing, producing aggressive agitation against Narutowicz by Catholic and nationalist groups that accused him of being an atheist, Freemason, and a Jew. Demonstrators tried to block his inauguration on December 11, hurling mud at his motorcade, and failing that, stonewalled the new president’s efforts to forge a functional government with members of the rival Christian Democratic Party. Even his appointment of Maurycy Zamoyski as minister of foreign affairs failed to pacify the far-right opposition, but the roadblock in Warsaw was broken by assassin Eligiusz Niewiadomski on December 16, 1922. Stanisław Wojciechowski, a scientist and cofounder of the Polish Socialist Party, succeeded Narutowicz as president. He held that office until May 14, 1926, when ex-friend Józef Piłsudski staged a coup d’état and forced his resignation. Successor Ignacy Mo s´cicki retained the Polish presidency until September 30, 1939, when German invaders completed their occupation of Poland. Further Reading Prybylla, Jan. When Angels Wept: The Rebirth and Dismemberment of Poland and Her People in the Early Decades of the Twentieth Century. Tucson, AZ: Wheatmark, 2010. Stachura, Peter. Poland, 1918–1945: An Interpretive and Documentary History of the Second Republic. London: Routledge, 2004. Watt, Richard. Bitter Glory: Poland and Its Fate, 1918 to 1939. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979.

357

358

N D A D AY E , M E L C H I O R

NDADAYE, MELCHIOR (1953–1993) On October 21, 1993, officers of the Burundian army and the Union for National Progress (UPRONA), dominated by members of the Tutsi ethnic group, staged a coup against President Melchior Ndadaye and his ruling party, the Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU), consisting chiefly of Hutu tribe members. The rebels quickly captured Ndadaye, along with Pontien Karibwami and Gilles Bimazubute, who served, respectively, as president and vice president of Burundi’s National Assembly. Those captives, with several other officials and cabinet members, were taken to an army barracks outside Bujumbura, and executed en masse. Details of the slayings remain vague to this day, though some reports indicate that President Ndadaye was stabbed with bayonets. Radio Rwanda announced the executions that night, and widespread violence between Tutsis and Hutus raged through successive days. Melchior Ndadaye was born on March 28, 1953, at Murama in Burundi’s Muramvya Province, historically the seat of Burundian kings. The monarchy effectively dissolved in 1885, when Germany colonized the region of present-day Burundi, Rwanda, and Tanzania as German East Africa. Defeat in World War I forced Germany to surrender its African colonies, whereupon the land was divided between Britain and Belgium, with the latter nation controlling “Ruanda-Urundi” until 1924. After World War II, Belgium continued to administer the region as a United Nations trust territory until 1962, when independence was granted to the fledgling states of Burundi and Rwanda. Only nine years old when his homeland achieved independence, Ndadaye planned for a career in education, but his training was aborted in April 1972, when genocidal violence erupted between Tutsis and Hutus. Most accounts name Hutus as the initial aggressors, but the tide soon turned against them, with an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 Hutus slaughtered by September. Another 200,000—Melchior Ndadaye among them—fled the country for their lives. Ndadaye finished his studies at the National University of Rwanda, in Butare, then proceeded to earn a second degree, in banking, from the National Academy of Arts and Trades in Toulouse, France. Returning to Rwanda, Ndadaye earned his living as a banker while gradually becoming involved in politics. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the first president of the Mouvement des Étudiants Progressistes Barundi au Rwanda, a group of exiled Burundian students living in Rwanda. In August 1979, he also cofounded the Burundi Workers’ Party (UBU), a Marxist organization for Burundian refugees. Strategic squabbles prompted Ndadaye to leave the UBU, returning to Burundi in September 1983. The UBU swiftly declined in influence without Ndadaye’s influence and leadership, officially disbanding in 1986. Many of its former members joined Ndadaye in his new political vehicle—FRODEBU—although it was legally banned, with all other opposition

N D A D AY E , M E L C H I O R

groups, under the rule of Burundi’s Supreme Revolutionary Council, led since November 1976 by Colonel Jean-Baptiste Bagaza. While traveling in Europe, on September 3, 1987, Bagaza was deposed by a rival military faction that imposed its own dictatorship over Burundi. Ndadaye’s FRODEBU continued covert operations under President Pierre Buyoya appointed, while Hutu–Tutsi violence persisted, claiming another 20,000 lives in August 1988 alone. Buyoya appointed a commission to mediate those conflicts, resulting in a new constitution that Buyoya approved in 1992, mandating ethnic balance in a government run by a president and parliament. National elections were scheduled for June 1993, and Ndadaye challenged President Buyoya, winning 65 percent of the vote from a coalition of four Hutudominated political parties. International observers certified the voting as free and fair, an endorsement echoed later in June, when legislative elections gave 65 of 81 available parliamentary seats to FRODEBU members. Tutsi opponents voiced no complaints at the time, although a coup d’état against president-elect Ndadaye was attempted—and swiftly defeated—on July 3, 1993. Inaugurated one week later, Ndadaye thus became Burundi’s first Hutu president and its first leader elected by democratic process. Well aware of his homeland’s bitter ethnic divisions, President Ndadaye charted a moderate, conciliatory course for governance. He appointed female Tutsi leader Sylvie Kinigi as prime minister on July 10, while granting one-third of his cabinet seats and two regional governorships to members of Pierre Buyoya UPRONA. At the same time, Ndadaye liberated most of Burundi’s political prisoners, declared unfettered freedom of the press, and granted amnesty to exiled Jean-Baptiste Bagaza. Moves to ameliorate longstanding Tutsi discrimination against Hutus progressed at a cautious pace, to avert further bloodshed. None of it helped. When President Ndadaye challenged sweetheart contracts and concessions granted to Tutsis by politicians from their own tribe, members of the Tutsi military–industrial elite balked and schemed against him. Military reforms further aggravated high-ranking Tutsi officers, and the return of exiled Hutus driven from the country in the 1970s raised specters of impending vengeance. Burundi’s new free press divided along ethnic lines, each side hurling inflammatory charges at the other. In such an atmosphere, the coup that claimed Ndadaye’s life was probably inevitable. An estimated 100,000 persons died in ethnic violence following the coup of October 1993, but the military plotters failed to seize control of Burundi as planned. A military committee of Public Salvation chose a Hutu, former minister of the interior François Ngeze, as head of state, but he ruled for only four days, then persuaded Prime Minister Kinigi to emerge from hiding at the French embassy and assume the post of acting president. Meanwhile, the

359

360

N D A D AY E , M E L C H I O R

BURUNDI CIVIL WAR This ethnic struggle between Hutu and Tutsi tribesmen, deeply rooted in Burundi’s history, began in October 1993, following the murder of President Melchior Ndadaye and his closest advisors. Tribal massacres claimed an estimated 100,000 lives within the 12 months following Ndadaye’s death, then escalated after the assassination of Ndadaye’s successor, President Cyprien Ntaryamira, in April 1994. Tutsi leader Pierre Buyoya seized control of the government in July 1996, promulgating a transition constitution and initiating peace talks two years later. Fighting continued nonetheless, despite attempted intervention by the United Nations and South African President Nelson Mandela. Another coup attempt failed to depose President Buyoya in April 2001, while pitched battles and terrorist massacres continued unabated. A Hutu, Domitien Ndayizeye, assumed the presidency in April 2003 and supervised the peace process that finally ended open warfare in August 2005. Leaving office that same month, Ndayizeye was arrested one year later, for his alleged role in a plot to overthrow his successor, President Pierre Nkurunziza. The long war’s estimated final toll—300,000 dead, two-thirds of them civilian noncombatants—is probably too conservative. Burundi remains a volatile nation, as demonstrated by rogue units from the National Forces of Liberation.

United Nations condemned Ndadaye’s assassination and launched an investigation into the coup, releasing a report in 1996 that blamed Tutsi army commanders for the assassinations and subsequent Hutu massacres. Meanwhile, Burundi had descended into civil war between Hutus and Tutsis (see sidebar), claiming an estimated 300,000 more lives before hostilities officially ended in August 2005. Establishment of a national army, merging Hutu and Tutsi armed forces, appeared to quell the violence, but sporadic outbreaks continue—as when Hutu rebels from the National Forces of Liberation bombarded Bujumbura in April 2008, killing 33 persons. While the civil war was still ongoing, in May 1999, authorities tried 117 defendants on charges related to President Ndadaye assassination. Alleged ringleader Paul Kamana and four others were sentenced to death, although Kamana was then in exile and safe from execution. Another 74 defendants received prison terms ranging from one to 20 years, and 38 were acquitted. Those discharged by the court included Colonel Jean Bikomagu, the army’s former chief of staff; Colonel Charles Ntakije, former minister of defense; and

NGO DINH DIEM

Colonel Isaie Nibizi, who had charge of the president’s security detachment during the fatal coup. Further Reading Abdallah, Ahmedou. Burundi on the Brink, 1993–95: A UN Special Envoy Reflects on Preventive Diplomacy. Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace, 2000. “Burundi Civil War.” GlobalSecurity.org. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/ war/burundi.htm. “Chronology for Hutus in Burundi.” Minorities at Risk. http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/ mar/chronology.asp?groupId=51601. Lemarchand, René. Burundi: Ethnic Conflict and Genocide. Cambridge, MA: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1996. Mwakikagile, Godfrey. Burundi: The Hutu and the Tutsi—Cauldron of Conflict and Quest for Dynamic Compromise. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: New Africa Press, 2012. Mwakikagile, Godfrey. Identity Politics and Ethnic Conflicts in Rwanda and Burundi: A Comparative Study. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: New Africa Press, 2012. Scherrer, Christian. Genocide and Crisis in Central Africa: Conflict Roots, Mass Violence, and Regional War. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001. United Nations Security Council. International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi: Final Report. June 7, 2002. http://www.usip.org/files/file/resources/collections/commis sions/Burundi-Report.pdf. Uvin, Peter. Life after Violence: A People’s Story of Burundi. New York: Macmillan, 2009.

NGO DINH DIEM (1901–1963) On November 1, 1963, the South Vietnamese soldiers led by Generals Duong Van Minh and Tran Van Don laid siege to the Gia Long Palace in Saigon, seeking to arrest President Ngo Dinh Diem and his younger brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. In fact, their targets were forewarned of the attack and had escaped to Cholon, hoping to launch a countercoup. Upon discovering that his U.S. advisors supported the rebels, however, Ngo surrendered with his brother in the early hours of November 2. Captain Nguyen Van Nhung, personal bodyguard to General Minh, asked Lucien Conein—a U.S. Army officer doubling as an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)—to arrange air transport of the brothers into “honorable retirement” outside of South Vietnam, then changed his mind and had them executed in an armored personnel carrier, presumably to thwart any future political comeback. Conein had supported the coup but denied any advance knowledge of the double murder, a plea of ignorance openly questioned by numerous CIA critics. Roger Hilsman, U.S. assistant secretary of state, had written in August 1963 that “under no circumstances should the Nhus be permitted to remain in Southeast Asia in close proximity to Vietnam because of the plots they will mount to try to regain power. If the generals decide to exile Diem, he should also be sent outside Southeast Asia.” One of the

361

362

NGO DINH DIEM

coup leaders was more direct, stating that “To kill weeds, you must pull them up at the roots.” Today, most historians concur that the CIA was complicit in, if not directly responsible for, the double assassination. Ngo Dinh Diem was born on January 3, 1901, in Hue, capital of Vietnam under the Nguyen Dynasty, from 1802 to 1945. Portuguese missionaries converted his ancestors to Roman Catholicism in the 17th century, a religious alignment that later placed him at odds with Vietnam’s Buddhist majority. His full name at birth, incorporating that of a Catholic saint, was Jean Baptiste Ngo Dinh Diem, and although he later claimed direct descent from a clan of wealthy CIA agents collaborated in the murder of South mandarins, biographers trace Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. (Time & his family roots to the central Life Pictures/Getty Images) Vietnamese village of Phú Câm. Educated at a French Catholic school, and later at a private academy run by his devout father Diem entered a monastery at age 15, but found its spartan regimen distasteful, swapping plans for a career in the church for a scholarship in Paris. From there, he progressed to Hanoi’s School of Public Administration and Law, another French institution that trained Indochina’s government bureaucrats. Graduating with honors in 1921, Diem followed elder brother Ngo Dinh Khoi into civil service, working first at Hue’s royal library, rising to the rank of district chief by 1922, and to that of provincial chief in 1926, supervising affairs in 300 rural villages. In 1929, he led a purge of communist agitators within his jurisdiction, thereby securing promotion to the governorship of Binh Thuan Province, on Vietnam’s south-central coast. During 1930–1931, Diem joined with French colonial forces to crush peasant revolts in Binh Thuan, sparking allegations of widespread atrocities. The return of exiled emperor Bao Dai, in 1932, saw Diem promoted to serve as minister of the interior, but he resigned after barely three months in office, stripped of all titles ?

NGO DINH DIEM

and kept under close surveillance after he asked French leaders to create a Vietnamese legislature. Formally unemployed over the next decade, Diem saw opportunity in the Japanese invasion of French Indochina. In 1942, he lobbied Japanese occupation forces to declare Vietnamese independence, but they ignored his please. Diem then founded a resistance group of sorts, the Association for the Restoration of Great Vietnam, which led to issuance of a warrant for his arrest in summer 1944. Disguised as a Japanese officer, Diem escaped to Saigon and made one last effort to collaborate with the invaders in early 1945. The Japanese offered Diem the post of prime minister in a puppet regime under Emperor Bao Dai, their parting gift to Vietnam, but he first declined, then changed his mind too late, after the post was filled by Tran Trong Kim. Diem thus accidentally escaped arrest as a collaborator when the Japanese withdrew, but his problems were not over. Whereas Diem had sought accommodation with his homeland’s enemies, resistance leader Nguyen Sinh Cung—better known to history as Ho Chi Minh—had fought the Japanese at every turn. In September 1945, Ho declared a Democratic Republic of Vietnam and turned his Viet Minh army against French colonial forces. Diem embarked for Hue, hoping he could dissuade Bao Dai from joining Ho Chi Minh, but he was arrested in transit and was held for six months, during which he nearly died from a combination of virulent diseases. At liberty again in 1946, as conflict between the French and Viet Minh erupted into full-scale war, Diem settled in Saigon and cofounded the Vietnam National Alliance, calling on France to grant dominion status for his homeland. Although that effort ultimately failed, Diem gathered enough support to be taken seriously in Paris, where diplomats sought his help in persuading Emperor Bao Dai to join and endorse their fledgling State of Vietnam in 1949. By 1950, Ho Chi Minh had sentenced Diem to death in absentia, and an attempt on his life that same year drove Diem into exile, first at the Vatican, then in Japan. Both sides in Vietnam requested aid from the United States, and although President Harry Truman rejected overtures from Ho Chi Minh to expel French colonial forces, the outbreak of war in Korea encouraged support for an anticommunist regime in Vietnam. Pope Pius XII lobbied European leaders on Diem’s behalf, and Diem spent the next three years at Cardinal Francis Spellman’s Maryknoll Seminary in Westchester County, New York. Thanks to Spellman, Diem was named as a consultant to Michigan State University’s Government Research Bureau, where he joined Professor Wesley Fishel and various CIA agents to form the Michigan State University Vietnam Advisory Group, collaborating to “save” Vietnam from communism. Viet Minh forces finally defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu, in May 1954, prompting an international conference in Geneva, Switzerland, to decide the

363

364

NGO DINH DIEM

political fate of Indochina. That conference divided the former French colony into three countries—Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia—while imposing the 17th parallel as a “provisional military demarcation line” between North and South Vietnam, pending reunification with national elections in 1956. Ho Chi Minh, confident of election based on his wartime record, ruled North Vietnam in the interim, and Bao Dai named Diem as prime minister of South Vietnam, with U.S. support. An estimated one million persons, mostly Catholics, left North Vietnam for the south, and some 52,000 moved north of the 17th parallel. Diem, meanwhile, had difficulty consolidating his rule in South Vietnam, despite the influx of Catholic supporters. He quarreled incessantly with General Nguyen Van Hinh, a French citizen installed as army chief of staff by departing French officials; grappled for control of the countryside against large militias of rival religious sects, the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao; and lost control of his national police force to Saigon’s Bien Xuyen crime syndicate, courtesy of a $1.25 million bribe paid by monsters to Bao Dai. General Hinh attempted a coup in August 1954, foiled by the CIA, and Diem rebounded with a landslide victory in October 1955, when South Vietnamese voters affirmed him as prime minister. His triumph was doubly remarkable for obtaining 605,025 votes in Saigon, where only 450,000 voters were registered. Three days later, on October 26, Diem proclaimed himself president of a new Republic of South Vietnam. With U.S. support, he cancelled the elections scheduled for 1956, thereby negating the Geneva Accords. Over the next eight years, despite occasional sham elections, Diem ruled South Vietnam as a virtual despot in the French colonial style, filling his top government posts with Catholic cronies. Although personally corrupt, he made a show of moralism, banning abortion and prosecuting adulterers, reclaiming Saigon from the Binh Xuyen gang, and crushing the larger religious militias. Draconian punishment for various infractions included beheading with a mobile guillotine, towed around rural villages behind an army truck, with Viet Minh supporters and anticorruption whistleblowers bearing the brunt of execution and torture. Observers estimate that Diem’s regime killed at least 50,000 persons in that manner, and imprisoning at least 75,000 more. Increasing opposition to Diem was not limited to the Viet Minh or South Vietnam’s native National Liberation Front (the Viet Cong). Communist gunman Ha Minh Tri failed in the first known attempt to kill Diem, on February 22, 1957, but other attempts followed. On November 11, 1960, Colonel Nguyen Chanh Thi and Lieutenant Colonel Vuong Van Dong led an abortive coup against Diem, then fled the country when it failed. On February 27, 1962, two air force pilots—First Lieutenant Pham Phu Quoc and Second Lieutenant Nguyen Van Cu—strafed the presidential palace, killing three staffers and wounding 31 others. They missed Diem, however, and whereas Cu escaped to Cambodia, Quoc was imprisoned until after Diem’s assassination in November 1963.

NGO DINH DIEM

Diem’s final crisis stemmed from his mostly Catholic regime’s persistent discrimination against Buddhists, who comprised an estimated 80 percent of the population. Exclusion of Buddhists from most public service positions, coupled with special concessions to Catholics on taxation and in business, were among the chief Buddhist complaints. Diem also promoted Catholics to most command positions in the military, and distributed weapons for counterinsurgency to Catholic villagers, while leaving most Buddhist settlements defenseless against Viet Cong raiders. The Catholic Church remained South Vietnam’s largest landowner, and Catholics were exempted from the neo-feudal corvée system of forced labor required by Diem’s regime from most citizens. By May 1963, when Buddhist flags were banned from the mostly Buddhist city of Hue, where Diem’s elder brother served as Catholic archbishop, South Vietnam stood on the verge of a religious uprising. Soldiers and police fired on protesters, killing dozens, later spraying demonstrators with caustic chemical weapons. Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc publicly burned himself to death in Saigon, on June 11, and other fiery protests followed, prompting Diem’s sister-in-law to gloat over her pleasure at the “Buddhist barbecues.” In August, soldiers raided a pagoda in Saigon, vandalizing it and seizing Duc’s cremated

MADAME NHU Although South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem never married, his sister-in-law, wife of presidential brother and chief advisor Ngo Dinh Nhu, served as the nation’s de facto First Lady. Born Tran Le Xuan (“Tears of Spring”), on August 22, 1924, South Vietnam’s future “Dragon Lady” was yet another Catholic aristocrat whose family had forged alliances with French colonial administrators. She married Ngo Dinh Nhu in 1943, at age 18, and rose to power with him in the 1950s, as Nhu’s brother won the presidency, taking Nhu along as his chief advisor in a regime notorious for nepotistic cronyism. Under President Diem, Madame Nhu’s father became South Vietnam’s ambassador to the United States, and her mother served as an observer at the United Nations. In 1962, while erecting a monument to the Trung sisters—heroines of an ancient rebellion against China—Madame Nhu insisted that the statue bear her likeness. The following year, her callous comments about “Buddhist barbecues” focused animosity against her family and longstanding discrimination against Vietnam’s religious majority. Following her husband’s death, she fled into exile, her property seized by Diem’s successors. Madame Nhu died in Rome on Easter Sunday, April 24, 2011.

365

366

NGOUABI, M ARIEN

remains, after beating the priests. By November, most historians today agree, Diem had become such an embarrassment that his erstwhile U.S. supporters approved of—or, at least, refrained from preventing—his assassination. One who did not approve, and who apparently was shocked by the Saigon killings, was President John F. Kennedy. He called the double murder “particularly abhorrent,” telling National Security Council staffer Michael Forrestal that it “bothered him as a moral and religious matter.” Coupled with the Cuban Bay of Pigs fiasco from 1961, the Saigon incident probably influenced Kennedy’s remark to future Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford that “Something very bad is going on within the CIA and I want to know what it is. I want to shred the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the four winds.” Kennedy lost that chance three weeks later, with his own assassination in Dallas, Texas. In Vietnam, no one was ever prosecuted for killing Diem and his brother. A French physician signed the death certificates without performing an autopsy, listing Diem occupations as “Chief of Province” and his brother’s as “Chief of Library Service,” posts they last held in the 1940s. They were buried at an undisclosed location, still kept secret to the present day. General Duong Van Minh succeeded Diem as president for two months, then ceded the office to ex-general Nguyen Khanh. Minh would return as president in April 1975, for an even shorter three-day tenure, prior to the communist capture of South Vietnam. See also: Kennedy, John Fitzgerald (1917–1963).

Further Reading Hammer, Ellen. A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1987. Hoang Ngoc Thanh and Than Thi Nhan Duc. Why the Vietnam War? President Ngo Dinh Diem and the US: His Overthrow and Assassination. Tuan-Yen, Vietnam: Mai-Nam Publishers, 2001. Jacobs, Seth. America’s Miracle Man in Vietnam: Ngo Dinh Diem, Religion, Race, and U.S. Intervention in Southeast Asia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005. Jacobs, Seth. Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America’s War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Anchor Books, 2008.

NGOUABI, MARIEN (1938–1977) On March 18, 1977, four gunmen stormed the official residence of President Marien Ngouabi in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo. The raiders killed Ngouabi, who was described over Radio Brazzaville as dying in combat, with gun in hand. A 11-member military committee of the Congolese Labour Party, quickly formed to serve as an interim government “until further orders

NGOUABI, MARIEN

were issued,” described the killers as a “suicide squad,” although its alleged ringleader—former army captain Barthélemy Kikadidi—had escaped alive. In his absence, the committee rounded up more than a dozen other suspects, including ex-president Alphonse Massamba-Débat, whom Ngouabi had deposed by force in September 1968. All were convicted of treason, despite what some observers called a dearth of solid evidence, and they were executed en masse on March 25, 1977. Marien Ngouabi was born at Ombellé, in the Cuvette Department of thenFrench Equatorial Africa, on December 31, 1938. Completing his primary education at Owando, in 1953, Ngouabi then matriculated to Brazzaville’s military academy, Ecole des enfants de troupes Général Leclerc, graduating in 1957. His first posting was to Bouar, in Oubangui-Chari (now the Central African Republic), followed by service in the French–British mandate of Cameroun from 1958 until January 1960, when it achieved independence as the Republic of Cameroon. Eight months later, in August 1960, France granted full independence to the Republic of the Congo. Ngouabi’s superiors then dispatched him to the Ecole Militaire Préparatoire in Strasbourg, France, and to the Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr, for training as an officer. He returned home as a second lieutenant in 1962, promoted to full lieutenant the following year. In 1965, Ngouabi created and trained the country’s first paratrooper battalion, simultaneously earning a reputation for outspoken leftist views. In April 1966, when he refused a posting to Pointe-Noire, second-largest city in the nation, Ngouabi suffered demotion to the rank of soldier second-class. He nonetheless continued his political agitation, and was arrested by order of President Alphonse Massamba-Débat on July 29, 1968. Two days later, sympathetic soldiers freed Ngouabi and a fellow prisoner, Second Lieutenant Eyabo, organizing a new National Revolutionary Council on August 5, with Ngouabi in charge. President Massamba-Débat retained his office, as an emasculated figurehead ruler, until Ngouabi proclaimed himself president on December 31, 1968. His first official act involved renaming his homeland as the People’s Republic of the Congo (PRC), Africa’s first Marxist– Leninist state. At the same time, Ngouabi established a new Parti Congolais du Travail (Congolese Party of Labour, or PCT) as the PRC’s only legal political party. His regime forged close ties with the Soviet Union, but also maintained relations with France—at least, until he refused demands from Paris that he annex Angola’s oil-rich Cabinda Province. Some observers claim that France thereafter promoted and financed a series of attempts to depose Ngouabi. The first such coup occurred on February 22, 1972, prompting Ngouabi to purge his army’s ranks of suspected traitors. Former Congolese prime minister Ambroise Noumazalayewas among 13 defendants sentenced to die on March 25, but President Ngouabi commuted their death sentences to life

367

368

NGOUABI, M ARIEN

imprisonment on the same day. An anti-Ngouabi militant group, “M 22”— short for Mouvement 22 de fevrier, “February 22 Movement”—remained active in the PRC until April 1973, when leader Ange Diawara was killed with most of his supporters. Two months later, seeking a new global ally, President Ngouabi visited the People’s Republic of China. On December 30, 1974, Ngouabi was reelected as chairman and permanent secretary of the PCT Central Committee, sworn in for a second term as president on January 9, 1975. Having already nationalized the PRC’s means of production—factories, mines, and so on—he now signed a formal economic pact with the Soviet Union. A communist state in Africa was the West’s worst nightmare, prompting allegations of subversion by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Four days after Ngouabi’s assassination, on March 22, 1977, persons unknown kidnapped and murdered Brazzaville’s Catholic archbishop, Cardinal Émile Biayenda. No one was apprehended for that crime, though Radio Brazzaville blamed unnamed members of Ngouabi’s family. Following Ngouabi’s murder, the military committee of the Congolese Labour Party installed Colonel Joachim Yhombi-Opango as head of state, a post he held until his forced resignation in February 1979, on charges of trying to organize a ruling “rightist faction.” Before he was deposed, Yhombi-Opango suspended the PRC’s constitution and dissolved the national assembly. He maintained ties to the Soviet Union, while strengthening alliances with France and resuming diplomatic relations with the United States (severed in 1965). In 1991, the PRC’s Sovereign National Conference removed the word populaire (“People’s”) from the country’s name, also replacing the flag and national anthem with symbols more appreciated in the West. Meanwhile, on February 12, 1978, Brazzaville security forces reportedly found the corpse of assassination ringleader Barthélemy Kikadidi, shot in the back “a short time before,” at a hideout near the capital. Also found, they said, was the fresh corpse of Brazzaville taxi driver Joseph Kifouani, posthumously accused of helping Kikadidi hide since March 1977. Few observers were fully satisfied with that convenient solution, which silenced Kikadidi forever, but his death eventually helped to “rehabilitate” late president Massamba-Débat, celebrated today with a Brazzaville stadium named in his honor.

Further Reading Clark, John, and Samuel Decalo. Historical Dictionary of Republic of the Congo. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012. Decalo, Samuel. Africa: The Lost Decades. Gainesville: Florida Academic Press, 2012. Decalo, Samuel. Coups and Army Rule in Africa: Motivations and Constraints. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990.

NICHOLAS II

Onwumechili, Chuka. African Democratization and Military Coups. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998. Shubin, V. G. The Hot ‘Cold War’: The USSR in Southern Africa. London: Pluto Press, 2008.

NICHOLAS II (1868–1918) On March 15, 1917, in the midst of the Russian Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated his throne, naming his brother, Grand Duke Michael, as the next emperor of all of Russia. Michael declined, preferring election by popular vote, but Russian peasants wanted no more monarchs, opting instead for a provisional socialist government. On March 22, Nicholas, his wife, and children were placed under house arrest at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, south of Saint Petersburg. In August, as fighting continued, the royal family was evacuated to Tobolsk, in Siberia, then transported once again to Yekaterinburg, in May 1918. Their captors sought to keep them from advancing Bolsheviks (“majority”), battling to seize control of Russia from Alexander Kerensky’s Menshevik (“minority”) regime. Captured by the Bolsheviks (or “Reds”) at Yekaterinburg, Nicholas and his family were scheduled for trial, but their captors panicked upon receiving word of an anticommunist “white” army’s advance. On July 16, 1918, a telegram from Moscow’s Supreme Soviet (“council”) ordered the Romanov family’s mass execution. Commandant Yakov Yurovsky led the firing squad that carried out that order, shooting Nicholas, his wife, and their five children in a basement chamber, finishing the job with bayonets. Russia’s last tsar was born Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov, in Saint Petersburg, on May 18, 1868. His paternal grandfather was Tsar Alexander II, and his maternal grandfather was King Christian IX of Bolshevik revolutionaries killed Tsar Nicholas II Denmark. His father was Tsar and his family in 1918. (Getty Images)

369

370

NICHOLAS II

Alexander III, and his mother—Princess Dagmar of Denmark—was a sister British queen Alexandra, mother of King George V. He was thus of Russian, Danish, and German descent, but above all, a blue-blooded royal. On March 13, 1881, Nicholas witnessed his grandfather’s assassination in Saint Petersburg, an act that prompted Alexander III to move his family outside the city, to the more secure Gatchina Palace. With his father’s elevation to the throne, Nicholas in turn succeeded him as Russia’s Tsesarevich (heir apparent). From that post, he participated in opening ceremonies for the Trans-Siberian Railway (March 1890), attended meetings of the Imperial Council, and survived his first assassination attempt at Otsu, Japan, on May 11, 1891. That incident occurred during a nine-month “Eastern journey” spanning India, Southeast Asia, China, and Japan, when one of the royal party’s security guards, Tsuda Sanzo¯, swung a saber at Nicholas. The first blow gashed Nicholas’s forehead, but he was saved from a second through quick action by his cousin, Prince George of Greece and Denmark, who blocked the thrust with his cane. Rickshaw drivers captured the would-be assassin, who received a life prison term. Alexander III died on November 1, 1894, whereupon Nicholas, age 26, assumed the throne. On November 26, he married Princess Alix of Hesse, subsequently known as Empress Consort Alexandra Feodorovna after her conversion to the Russian Orthodox Church. Despite his early reputation as a ladies’ man, Nicholas was apparently faithful to Alexandra throughout their marriage, which produced four daughters and one son between 1895 and 1904. Although ruling as tsar from the moment of his father’s death, Nicholas did not undergo formal coronation until May 26, 1896. The following day, at a public celebration on Khodynka Field outside Moscow, a stampede by 500,000 persons seeking free food and beer left 1,389 dead and another 1,300 injured. Whereas some observers took that disaster as an omen of the new regime’s ill fortune, others viewed a gala banquet for the French ambassador—held on the same night—as emblematic of the new tsar’s indifference toward his people. Over the next five years, Nicholas pursued his late father’s domestic and foreign policies, including reinforcement of a Franco-Russian Alliance that would endure until disrupted by the revolution of 1917. He also sought to negotiate peace between hostile nations of Europe, culminating in the Hague Peace Conference of 1899 and the nomination of Nicholas for a Nobel Peace Prize two years later. Nicholas lost the final vote for that award, and dual prizes went to Henry Dunant of Switzerland, for founding the International Committee of the Red Cross, and to Frenchman Frédéric Passy, for organizing the first Universal Peace Conference. Three years after his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, Nicholas found himself at war with Japan, in February 1904. Both nations sought control over Korea and Manchuria, but Japanese forces proved superior, defeating both the Russian army and navy in separate engagements. In the midst of that conflict,

NICHOLAS II

on January 22, 1905, a series of strikes and uprisings launched Russia’s first revolution against the royal family, continuing until resistance was crushed in June 1907. Although overall casualty figures are vague and unreliable, an estimated 14,000 dissidents were executed during the revolution, with at least 75,000 imprisoned. Meanwhile, the Russo-Japanese War cost Russia some 53,000 lives lost in combat, and another 18,830 from disease. The Treaty of Portsmouth, signed on September 5, 1905, ended that conflict and established Japan as a global power, dominant over the Pacific Ocean. The 1905 revolution produced a new constitution, ratified in April 1906. Aside from charting guidelines for royal succession and promulgation of laws, Chapter 8 detailed the “rights and obligations” of Russian citizens. For the first time in history, they were guaranteed protection from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, with protection from illegal search and seizure, and promised inviolability of their homes. They also gained the right to own private property, to travel through Russia (subject to restrictions), to assemble and express themselves freely, to choose their own religion, and to organize labor unions or guilds. Military service remained mandatory for all males, regardless of social rank, as did payment of taxes and performance of “other duties in accordance with lawful decrees.” Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte took office as Russia’s first prime minister on November 6, 1905, and although Nicholas initially enjoyed cordial relations with him, Alexandra disliked him for personal reasons—specifically Witte’s investigation of Grigori Rasputin, a shady mystic who had attached himself to the Romanov clan that same year, with promises to cure Tsarevich Alexei’s hemophilia. Rasputin failed in that, but still exerted quasi-hypnotic control over Alexandra, and through her, over the tsar. Conflicts with the empress consort and the State Duma (lower house of the federal legislature) forced Witte’s resignation in May 1906, and his successor as prime minister, Pyotr Stolypin, dissolved the Duma two months later. A Second Duma fared no better, dissolved by Stolypin in June 1907. The eruption of World War I, in July 1914, involved Russia through its Triple Entente alliance with France and Great Britain, squaring off against the Central Powers of Germany, Bulgaria, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. Before the 1917 revolution removed Russia as a combatant in that global conflict, estimated military losses for the tsar’s empire ranged from 1,811,000 to 2,254,369, with at least 1.5 million civilian deaths from military action, or from disease, famine, and other war-related causes. Losses on that scale were bound to spark dissension, even among loyal monarchists. One such defender of the tsar, Vladimir Purishkevich, rose in the Duma on December 2, 1916, to complain of “dark forces” surrounding the throne— specifically Grigori Rasputin. If the mad monk’s influence was not removed, Purishkevich warned to thunderous applause, “Revolution threatens and an

371

372

NICHOLAS II

obscure peasant shall govern Russia no longer!” Enemies of Rasputin murdered him two weeks later, but time was already running out for the Romanov dynasty. The year 1917 found Russia on the brink of collapse. Millions of deaths aside, the country had lost 55 percent of its locomotives and 34 percent of its railroad cars since 1914, and wartime prohibition of alcoholic beverages unexpectedly drained the treasury through loss of tax revenue. Starvation prompted looting in Petrograd, in February 1917, with public denunciation of Nicholas and “the German woman” he had married. When police fired on the demonstrators, widespread rioting resulted. Reserve troops mustered to suppress the rebels mutinied instead, killing those officers who did not join them. By March 12, 1917, an estimated 60,000 soldiers were on the march against their monarch. Nicholas abdicated three days later, in favor of his youngest brother, but it was already too late to save the empire. Alexander Kerensky, then minister of war in Russia’s new provisional government, ordered the country’s last military offensive of World War I on July 1, 1917. By then, discipline within the army had degenerated to the point that the campaign was bound to fail, collapsing on July 19 with an estimated 60,000 Russian casualties. Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks consolidated power over Russia in November 1917, and although they sued for peace, German demands were so extreme that fighting dragged on for another four months. Finally, on March 3, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ended combat on the Eastern Front, while affirming independence for Belarus, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Twelve days later, execution of the Romanovs signaled the final end of monarchy in Russia. As news of the murders spread through Yekaterinburg, Yakov Yurovsky ordered the corpses removed to another location. The chosen vehicle broke down en route to Yurovsky’s chosen burial site, whereupon Nicholas and his family were hastily planted in a pit along Koptyaki Road, 12 miles north of Yekaterinburg. In 1991, a Soviet government reclamation team found the remains of five victims—excluding daughter Maria and son Alexei—and reinterred them in a state funeral at the St. Catherine Chapel of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg. On August 15, 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized the late tsar and his family, rather curiously citing their “humbleness, patience and meekness” as qualifications for sainthood. In the summer of 2007, searchers found another grave site near the pit where Nicholas, his wife, and three children were unearthed in 1991. This grave held the remains of two more victims, identified through DNA, in May 2008, as Maria and Alexei Romanov. Five months later, on October 1, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation “rehabilitated” the slain Romanovs, calling them victims of political repression. On August 26, 2010, Moscow’s Basmanny Court ordered a new investigation of the Romanov murders with

NICHOLAS II

an eye toward prosecuting their slayers. That proved to be an empty gesture, because all of the Bolshevik suspects were long since deceased. For years after the Russian Revolution, various impostors surfaced, claiming to be children of Tsar Nicholas who had, somehow, escaped the firing squad. At least five women claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, and no less than nine men posed as Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich. Three women also posed as Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna, two as Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, and one as Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna. Yet another man claimed to be Anastasia’s son, and a Dutch woman professed to be a previously unknown fifth royal daughter, born—she said—at the time when Empress Alexandra suffered a “hysterical pregnancy.” None of the impostors was able to establish royal identity. See also: Alexander II of Russia (1818–1881); Rasputin, Grigori Yefimovich (1869–1916).

Further Reading “The Execution of Tsar Nicholas II, 1918.” Eyewitness to History. http://www.eyewit nesstohistory.com/nicholas.htm. “The Home of the Last Tsar.” Alexander Palace Time Machine. http://www.alexander palace.org/palace/mainpage.html. Lieven, D. C. B. Nicholas II: Twilight of the Empire. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1996. Lyons, Marvin. Nicholas II: The Last Tsar. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974. McNeal, Shay. The Secret Plot to Save the Tsar: New Truths behind the Romanov Mystery. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Radzinsky, Edvard. The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Richards, Guy. The Rescue of the Romanovs: Newly Discovered Documents Reveal How Czar Nicholas II and the Russian Imperial Family Escaped. Greenwich, CT: DevinAdair Publishing, 1975. Slater, Wendy. The Many Deaths of Tsar Nicholas II: Relics, Remains and the Romanovs. London: Taylor & Francis, 2009. Warth, Robert. Nicholas II: The Life and Reign of Russia’s Last Monarch. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997.

373

This page intentionally left blank

O OBAMA, BARACK HUSSEIN, II (1961– )— ATTEMPTED/THREATENED Arguably the most controversial U.S. chief executive since Franklin D. Roosevelt, Barack Obama made history in 2008 with his election as the nation’s first African American president. From the announcement of his candidacy in 2007, he became a lightning rod for vitriolic attacks by white supremacists and other far-right extremists, resulting in a series of assassination threats and alleged murder plots spanning five years, as of this writing in November 2012. Obama was a U.S. senator from Illinois when he announced his presidential candidacy in February 2007, and the first racist death threats came three months later. As a result, Secret Service agents were assigned to guard Obama and his family from that date onward, although federal law only mandates protection of major candidates for 120 days preceding a presidential election. No details of the threats in question are available today, and although the National Journal ran an August 2007 article headlined “Authorities play down plot against Obama,” the protection detail remained in place. On July 15, 2008, six weeks before the Democratic National Convention nominated Obama as its presidential candidate, two residents of Charlotte, North Carolina, reported threats made against Obama by local accountant Jerry M. Blanchard, described today on racist Web sites as “a stalwart Republican.” Speaking to diners at a restaurant, Blanchard declared, “Obama and his wife are never going to make it to the White House. He needs to be taken out and I can do it in a heartbeat.” A third witness told authorities of a second incident, at a hotel, where Blanchard said, “I’ll get a sniper rifle and take care of it myself. Somebody’s got to do it. We both know Obama is the anti-Christ.” Indicted for threatening Obama in August 2008, Blanchard pled guilty in February 2009, receiving a 366-day prison term and a fine of $3,100, plus three years’ supervised federal probation. In September 2009, he was permanently stripped of his state accountant’s license. On July 31, 2008, two weeks after the initial Blanchard incident, Raymond H. Geisel held a training class for bail-bonds enforcement agents in Miami, Florida. During the course of his lecture, Geisel referred to Obama as a “nigger” and told the class, “If he gets elected, I’ll assassinate him myself.” He also threatened to shoot then-president George W. Bush, but later claimed the comments

376

OBA M A, BAR ACK HUSSEIN, II

were made in jest. Secret Service agents arrested Geisel in August and searched his motel room, seizing a loaded pistol and quantities of ammunition; tear gas; various knives, including a machete; body armor; and military-style fatigues. He spent a month in custody before being released. On August 24, 2008, one day before Democrats convened to nominate Obama in Denver, Colorado, authorities arrested three supposed white supremacists in Denver on charges of plotting to kill Obama. The suspects included cousins Shawn Robert Adolf and Tharin Gartrell, with a friend, Nathan Johnson. Gartell was nabbed first, with four guns and a quantity of methamphetamine, and the other two were jailed later the same day. Authorities alleged that the trio traveled to Denver with murder in mind, a claim apparently confirmed by Johnson in a radio interview, when he said, “He [Obama] don’t belong in political office. Blacks don’t belong in political office. He ought to be shot.” Secret Service spokesmen later said the Denver plot was “crude” and posed “no credible threat” to Obama, so the three were not indicted for threatening a presidential candidate. On January 29, 2009, District Judge Robert Blackburn sentenced Gartell to 15 days in jail and six months in a halfway house for possessing methamphetamine, adding, “Frankly, Mr. Gartell, it’s time you grew up.” Gartell was released on June 12, 2009. Held on outstanding drug warrants, Adolf faced additional charges of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, possession of body armor by a violent felon, and possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. He pled guilty to the gun charge on November 6, 2009, and the other counts were dismissed. On February 5, 2010, Adolf received a 30-month federal sentence, concurrent with a 10-year Colorado sentence on unrelated robbery charges. Prosecutors charged Nathan Johnson with simple possession of methamphetamine and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He pled guilty to the weapons charge on December 16, 2008, and completed his federal prison sentence on March 10, 2010. While those events were still unfolding—on September 23, 2008—Chicago police arrested local resident Omhari L. Sengstacke near Obama’s home, armed with a pistol and wearing a bulletproof vest. Held in lieu of $250,000 bond on charges of trespassing and unlawful use of a weapon by a convicted felon, Sengstacke was convicted on both counts and received a five-year sentence on July 10, 2009. On October 22, 2008, officers in Memphis, Tennessee, arrested selfproclaimed white supremacists Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman for plotting a racist mass-murder spree. Their plan included robbery of a local gun store and home-invasion robberies to bankroll their conspiracy, culminating in the assassination of Barack Obama and the murder of 88 African Americans in Tennessee, 14 of whom would be decapitated. (Among neoNazis, the number 88 symbolizes the letters “HH,” for “Heil Hitler,” and

OBAMA, BARACK HUSSEIN, II

the number 14 refers to the “Fourteen Words” originally penned by imprisoned racial terrorist David Lane: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White Children.”) Cowart and Schlesselman got no further with their plot than shooting up a Baptist church in Brownsville; they foolishly boasted of the attack to friends who reported the crime. Secret Service spokesmen said they took the threat to Obama “very seriously,” but questioned the defendants’ ability to follow through. On November 5, 2008, a federal grand jury indicted both men on charges of threatening to kill and inflict bodily harm upon a major presidential candidate, conspiracy, interstate unlawful transportation of an unregistered firearm, interstate transportation of a firearm with the intent to commit a felony, transporting a short-barreled shotgun across state lines without a license, and unlawful possession of a short-barreled shotgun. Cowart faced additional charges of damaging religious property and using a firearm during a crime of violence. Schlesselman pleaded guilty to three counts on January 14, 2010, receiving a 10-year sentence. Cowart pled guilty to eight counts on March 29, 2010, and was sentenced to 15 years. On November 10, 2009, Kristy Lee Roshia phoned the Boston office of the Secret Service, stating that she planned to “blow away” First Lady Michelle Obama during a forthcoming Christmas trip to Hawaii. Roshia declared that she knew “the exact location” where the Obamas would be staying, and added a threat to kill unspecified U.S. Marines. Already known to agents for her 2004 threat to kill President George W. Bush, Roshia was captured within two miles of the Obamas’ Honolulu lodgings on December 19, 2009, punching a Secret Service agent in the process. A judge ordered Roshia held without bond, pending psychiatric examination on February 9, 2010, but no further details are presently available on disposition of her case. On December 30, 2009, John Turnpaugh of New Orleans, Louisiana, called that city’s 911 emergency number and told a police dispatcher, “Hey, yeah, I’m going to kill President Barack Obama and his wife this month.” Although Turnpaugh did not give his name, Secret Service agents traced the call to his cell phone, leading to his arrest on January 2, 2010. Aside from threatening the president, Turnpaugh faced charges of possessing of marijuana with intent to distribute it and possessing four guns to aid his drug trafficking. He pled guilty to the charges on February 2, 2010, and received an eight-year sentence from U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey on May 11, 2010. An unusual case involved Kentucky resident Johnny Logan Spencer, who posted a poem titled “The Sniper”—describing Obama’s murder—on a whitesupremacist Web site in 2007, and again after President Obama took office in 2009. Authorities arrested Spencer in February 2010, and a federal grand jury indicted him in March. Despite claims that he wrote the poem to somehow vent grief over his mother’s recent death, Spencer abandoned a First Amendment

377

378

OBA M A, BAR ACK HUSSEIN, II

defense and pled guilty in July 2010, receiving a 33-month prison sentence on December 5, 2010. On March 21, 2010, Brian Dean Miller of Dallas, Texas, posted an Internet message to Craigslist under the heading “Obama Must Die.” The body of his message read: “People, the time has come for revolution. It is time for Obama to die. I am dedicating my life to the death of Obama and every employee of the federal government. As I promised in a previous post, if the health care reform bill passed I would become a terrorist. Today I become a terrorist.” In a subsequent post, he invited readers to contact the Secret Service, saying, “Feel free to notify them if it helps you sleep better tonight. You should tell them I threatened to kill the president and destroy the U.S. government. Maybe you would like to quote the post as your evidence.” A resident of nearby Arlington complied, and authorities traced Miller to his mother’s home through his e-mail address. Miller admitted posting the threat and repeated it to arresting officers. On November 2, 2010, Miller received a 27-month prison term without possibility of parole. On April 25, 2010, police in Asheville, North Carolina, arrested Ohio native Joseph Sean McVey at the city’s airport, as President Obama arrived aboard Air Force One. Armed with a pistol and driving a car disguised to resemble a police cruiser, complete with working lights and siren, McVey was jailed on charges of impersonating a police officer and “going armed to the terror of the public.” The latter charge was dropped for lack of evidence, and McVey posted $100,000 bond on April 28. Police who testified at his August trial admitted that everything found in his car might have had some logical use for McVey’s “public service volunteering” in the Buckeye State. On August 25, 2010, Judge Shirley Brown convicted McVey of violating an ordinance banning guns from city property, sentencing him to time served in April. The next threat came from Ireland, where ex-nurse and ex-convict Terence Edward Kelly—known to fellow Irish Muslim converts as Khalid Kelly, Abu Osama, and Taliban Terry—once led the outlawed Al-Muhajiroun militant group in Dublin. A fugitive from British justice in 2008–2009, Kelly returned to Dublin in April 2010 and briefly settled his legal affairs. In May 2011, interviewed by the Sunday Mirror, Kelly said that al-Qaeda was likely to kill Obama on the president’s upcoming visit to Ireland, adding that he—Kelly—would like to do it himself. “Personally I would feel happy if Obama was killed,” he said. “How could I not feel happy when a big enemy of Islam is gone?” Police detained Kelly during Obama’s visit, but he was not formally charged. On the night of November 11, 2011, Idaho resident Oscar Ramiro OrtegaHernandez fired nine rifle shots at the White House from his car, parked on Constitution Avenue. In custody, he told authorities that President Obama was “the devil” and “the Anti-Christ,” sentiments shared with Idaho neighbors before he left the Gem State for Washington, D.C. Those neighbors recalled his claims that he “needed to kill Obama” and “will not stop until

OBAMA, BARACK HUSSEIN, II

it’s done.” Others recalled Ortega-Hernandez claiming to be Jesus Christ. A federal grand jury indicted Ortega-Hernandez on January 17, 2012, for attempting to assassinate the president and 18 other related counts. His trial was scheduled for 2013. The next plot against President Obama involved four soldiers of the U.S. Army stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia. According to state prosecutors, the four—Sgt. Anthony Peden, Pvt. Isaac Aguigui, Pfc. Michael Burnett, and Pvt. Christopher Salmon—formed an “anarchist militia” aimed at killing President Obama and toppling the federal government. The four spent at least $87,000 on guns and bomb components. On December 2011, the four killed ex-soldier Michael Roark and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Tiffany York, to keep them from informing police of the conspiracy. Arrested a week later, Burnett confessed, pleading guilty to manslaughter, illegal gang activity, and other charges, while agreeing to testify against his comrades. Peden, Aguigui, and Salmon stand charged with malice murder, felony murder, criminal gang activity, aggravated assault, and using a firearm while committing a felony. The last threat to President Obama—at the time of this writing (2012)— was exposed on October 19, 2012, with the arrest of Bangladeshi native Quasi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis. Federal agents reported placing Nafis under surveillance during the summer, tracking his plan to launch a “holy war” against the United States. His plans included murdering the president and bombing the New York Federal Reserve with a van full of explosives, but agents managed to replace the actual explosive charges with inert substitutes; they then arrested Nafis after he parked the vehicle near his Manhattan target. Held without bond on multiple charges of terrorism, Nafis was described by a surprised acquaintance as “polite and courteous. He didn’t rant or rave or say crazy stuff. He was helpful. All the things you would expect from a good Muslim kid. He prayed five times a day.” No trial date has been scheduled at this writing. The target of that rage, Barack Obama, was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961, the son of a foreign exchange student from Kenya and a Caucasian mother from Kansas. His parents divorced in 1964, with his father returning to Kenya—a circumstance that later fueled baseless charges that Obama was ineligible for the presidency as “an African.” Obama’s mother married an Indonesian exchange student in 1965, and followed him home in 1967, where her son attended Indonesian-language schools from ages six to ten. Obama returned to Hawaii in 1971, living with his maternal grandparents, while his mother remained in Indonesia and died there, from cancer, in 1995. By that time, Obama had earned a BA in political science from Columbia University (1983) and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School (1991). Settling in Chicago, Obama directed Illinois’s Project Vote, seeking to increase black voter registration, from April to October 1992. The following

379

380

OBA M A, BAR ACK HUSSEIN, II

year, he joined a law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he remained through 2004. At the same time, he was elected to the Illinois state senate in 1997, serving through 2002. In 2004, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, serving there until his election as the first nonwhite president of the United States in 2008. Obama’s race and liberal politics inspired a right-wing backlash unrivaled since attacks on Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression, or perhaps on John F. Kennedy during his brief White House tenure in the early 1960s. Aside from his race and paranoid suspicions that he was “not American,” Obama inflamed the far right with policies that included withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, reform of national health care and immigration guidelines, economic stimulus measures to lift the country from a near-depression, and advocacy of equal rights for gay U.S. citizens. In November 2012, Obama was reelected, defeating Republican challenger Mitt Romney by a margin of 3.5 million popular votes and 332–206 in the Electoral College. Further Reading Bradley, Jim. “Charlotte Man Charged with Making Threats against Obama.” http://www .wsoctv.com/news/news/charlotte-man-charged-with-making-threats-against-/nG4Jh. Burnett, Sara. “Drug Suspect Wanted to Shoot Obama at Invesco.” Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO), September 3, 2008. Bynum, Russ. “Case Uncovers Terror Plot by Soldiers to Kill Obama.” USA Today, August 27, 2012. Date, Jack. “Feds Thwart Alleged Obama Assassination Plot.” ABC News, October 27, 2008. http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Vote2008/story?id=6122962&page=1. “FBI Thwarts Obama Assassination Plot.” Examiner.com. http://www.examiner.com/ article/fbi-thwarts-obama-assassination-plot. Gardner, David. “White Supremacists Cleared of Gun Plot to Assassinate President Obama.” Daily Mail (London), August 27, 2008. Jordan, Lara. “Feds Disrupt Skinhead Plot to Assassinate Obama.” USA Today, October 28, 2008. Lichtblau, Eric. “Arrests in Plan to Kill Obama and Black Schoolchildren.” New York Times, October 27, 2008. “Man Arrested after Obama Leaves North Carolina.” CNN, April 25, 2010. http:// news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/25/man-arrested-after-obama-leaves-north-carolina. “Man Indicted for Obama threat.” United Press International, August 30, 2008. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/08/30/Man-indicted-for-Obama-threat/ UPI-27211220119296. Maraniss, David. Barack Obama: The Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012. Mendell, Davis. Obama: From Promise to Power. New York: Amistad/HarperCollins, 2007. Riccardi, Nicholas. “Men’s Threat to Kill Obama is Downplayed.” Los Angeles Times, August 26, 2008.

O B R E G Ó N S A L I D O , Á L VA R O

Savage, Charlie. “Idaho Man Charged with Trying to Assassinate Obama.” Seattle Times, November 17, 2011. “Woman ‘Threatened to Murder’ Michelle Obama.” Sky News, December 23, 2009. http://news.sky.com/story/747031/woman-threatened-to-murder-michelle-obam.

OBREGÓN SALIDO, ÁLVARO (1880–1928) On July 17, 1928, General Álvaro Obregón Salido attended a banquet in the San Ángel district of Mexico City, celebrating his election to a second term as president. The recent electoral campaign coincided with Mexico’s “Cristero War,” a popular uprising against anti-Catholic policies of the ruling Mexican Laborist Party. During the banquet, Catholic militant José de León Toral gained access to the restaurant by posing as an itinerant caricaturist, then approached Obregón, drew a pistol, and shot him five times at close range, killing Obregón instantly. Arrested at the scene, León Toral told police that he decided to kill Obregón in November 1927, after one of his friends—Jesuit priest José Ramón Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez—was executed without trial for his alleged role in a bombing that wounded Obregón. At trial, León Toral pled guilty, saying that he killed Obregón to hasten the advent of Christ’s kingdom on Earth. Sentenced to die, he was shot by a military firing squad on February 9, 1929. Concepción Acevedo de la Llata, a Catholic nun who allegedly encouraged the assassination, received a 30-year prison sentence. Álvaro Obregón Salido was born on February 19, 1880, at Siquisiva, in the Mexican state of Sonora. His family, once affluent, had seen their estate confiscated by the Liberal Party in 1867, during the rebellion against Frenchsupported Emperor Maximilian I, and Obregón’s father died in the year of his only son’s birth, leaving Obregón to be raised in poverty by his mother and three older sisters. Employed at various jobs through adolescence—farming, working at a sugar mill, selling shoes door-to-door—Obregón became a tenant farmer in 1903, saving enough money to buy his own small chickpea farm by 1906. Tragedy struck again the following year, with the death of his wife. Entrusting two young daughters to the sisters who had raised him, Obregón invented a chickpea harvester in 1909 and formed a company to manufacture it, regaining a measure of wealth at last. Obregón entered politics in 1911, winning election as municipal president of Huatabampo, in Sonora. In November 1911, he threw his weight behind new president Francisco Indalecio Madero González, and in April 1912 he volunteered to join troops opposing Pascual Orozco Vazquez, a rogue general leading a rebellion against Madero’s regime in Chihuahua. He fought under the command of José Victoriano Huerta Márquez, displaying previously unexpected military skill, and won promotion to the rank of colonel by the time Orozco Vazquez was defeated in December 1912. Obregón planned a return

381

382

O B R E G Ó N S A L I D O , Á LVA R O

to civilian life, but Huerta deposed Madero on February 22, 1913, whereupon Obregón offered his services to loyalist forces in Sonora. Appointed as chief of Sonora’s War Department in March 1913, he defeated Huerta’s forces in four successive battles over the next two months. On September 30, 1913, Coahuila governor Venustiano Carranza named Obregón commander in chief of the Constitutional Army in the Northwest, with jurisdiction over five states. In April 1914, Obregón began his advance toward Mexico City, capturing the nation’s capital on August 16. Convinced that the Catholic Church had backed Huerta, Obregón fined the church 500,000 pesos, payable to a newly created Revolutionary Council for Aid to the People. Likewise distrusting the wealthy, Obregón imposed punitive taxes on capital, mortgages, real estate, automobiles, and other luxury items, while forcing selected foreign businessmen to sweep the capital’s streets. While Obregón was thus engaged, Carranza—now the president—suffered a falling out with his other top commanders, Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. Obregón, fearing another civil war, tried to remain neutral, but matters came to a head after Carranza refused to attend the Convention of Aguascalientes in October 1914. The Convention declared itself sovereign, choosing General Eulalio Gutiérrez Ortiz as president, while naming Villa commander of the Conventionalist Army, now at war with Carranza’s forces. Obregón enlisted “Red Battalions” from leftist labor unions, defeating Conventionalist troops at Puebla on January 4, 1915, rolling on to victory in a series of four engagements (collectively known as the Battle of Celaya) between April 6 and June 5. Although victorious, Obregón suffered a wound necessitating amputation of his right arm. In the midst of his final battles against Villa and Zapata, in May 1915, Obregón accepted appointment as Carranza’s minister of war. His efforts to make the Mexican army more professional included establishment of a staff college and school of military medicine, together with a Department of Aviation to train and field combat pilots. In September 1916, President Carranza announced a forthcoming constitutional convention to revise and strengthen the liberal 1857 Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States. When that body met in December, however, it was bitterly divided between conservative delegates backing Carranza and radicals insisting on agrarian reform, which Carranza opposed. Obregón supported the leftists, including full separation of church and state, with a ban on clergymen holding public office, canvassing on behalf of political parties or candidates, or inheriting from persons other than blood relatives. Carranza, courting Catholic support, opposed those provisions as well. In June 1919, Obregón announced his presidential candidacy, promising labor reforms and a new minister of industry and commerce if elected. Carranza retaliated by stripping Obregón of his military rank, which backfired to create a new wave of popularity for the challenger. Hand-picked Carranza successor Ignacio Bonillas defeated Obregón at the polls in April 1920, after

O B R E G Ó N S A L I D O , Á L VA R O

Carranza falsely accused Obregón of plotting a military coup, but that lie soon became a self-fulfilling prophecy. On April 23, supported by Sonoran governor Adolfo de la Huerta, Obregón rose in revolt against Carranza. Carranza died in an ambush on May 20, and de la Huerta served as provisional president until December 1920, when Obregón won a special election, naming de la Huerta as his secretary of the treasury. Obregón’s first term as president, from 1920 to 1924, witnessed sweeping educational reforms, including construction of more than 1,000 rural schools and 2,000 public libraries. He also promoted artistic endeavors, inaugurating the 50-year era of Mexican muralism, and forged an alliance with the Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers to promote widespread (if imperfect) labor reforms. In terms of land reform, Obregón’s administration distributed 921,627 hectares to Mexican farmers. Still suspicious of the Catholic Church and its influence, Obregón proved less extreme than many church leaders had feared, though they still condemned and despised him. An encyclical issued by Pope Pius XI, in 1922, spawned militant Catholic Action groups that violently opposed secular labor unions. In 1923, Obregón endorsed Plutarco Elías Calles as his successor in the following year’s presidential contest. Adolfo de la Huerta, who expected the endorsement, organized a rebellion that enlisted more than half of Obregón’s standing army. Nonetheless, with the remainder of his troops, Obregón crushed the insurgents on February 9, 1924, at Ocotlán, Jalisco. Calles was subsequently elected, and Obregon briefly retired from politics. His successor—an outspoken atheist—proved more radical in dealings with the Catholic Church, sparking the Cristero War. Scattered uprisings between August and October 1926 paved the way for a formal declaration of rebellion on January 1, 1927, and the self-styled Cristeros scored their first victory over federal troops at San Francisco del Rincón, Guanajuato, on February 23. Obregón, briefly content as a farmer and entrepreneur in Sonora, donned his uniform once more to battle Yaqui insurgents between October 1926 and April 1927, then announced his candidacy for a second presidential term in May of that year. He emerged victorious from that election, but did not survive to see inauguration day. He was succeeded by Minister of the Interior Emilio Portes Gil, who held office for 14 months, until a new election was organized. See also: Villa, Francisco “Pancho” (1878–1923); Zapata Salazar, Emiliano (1879–1919).

Further Reading Beller, Susan. The Aftermath of the Mexican Revolution. Minneapolis: Twenty-first Century Books, 2008. Brenner, Anita, and George Leighton. The Wind That Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1942. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984.

383

384

O LY M P I O , S Y LVA N U S E P I P H A N I O

Buchenau, Jürgen. The Last Caudillo: Alvaro Obregón and the Mexican Revolution. Chichester, United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. Hall, Linda. Álvaro Obregón: Power and Revolution in Mexico, 1911–1920. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1981. Tuck, Jim. “Cristero Rebellion: Part 1—Toward the Abyss.” Mexconnect. http://www .mexconnect.com/articles/286-cristero-rebellion-part-1-toward-the-abyss. Wasserman, Mark. The Mexican Revolution: A Brief History with Documents. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012.

OLYMPIO, SYLVANUS EPIPHANIO (1902–1963) On January 13, 1963, a group of disgruntled noncommissioned army officers staged a coup d’état against President Sylvanus Olympio in Lomé, the capital of Togo. Roused from sleep when the soldiers invaded his presidential palace, Olympio scaled a wall to reach the U.S. embassy next door. He found the embassy’s door locked, and when no one answered his knocking, Olympio concealed himself in a car parked nearby, within the embassy compound. Ambassador Leon Poullada arrived some time later and spoke with Olympio, but denied having keys to the embassy. Poullada left, ostensibly to find the keys, but rebel soldiers arrived in his absence and entered the open compound, found Olympio hiding in the car, and shot him. Most accounts name the coup’s leader, Sergeant Emmanuel Bodjollé, as Olympio’s executioner, but future president Étienne Eyadéma Gnassingbé later claimed to have killed Olympio personally. Sylvanus Olympio was born in Lomé on September 6, 1902. His homeland, then known as Togoland, had been a German protectorate—and Germany’s only self-supporting African President Sylvanus Olympio of Togo died in a mili- colony—since 1884. On Autary coup, in 1963. (Associated Press) gust 9, 1914, soon after the

O L Y M P I O , S Y L VA N U S E P I P H A N I O

outbreak of World War I, French and British forces invaded Togoland, forcing German occupation forces to surrender on August 26. On December 27, 1916, the invaders divided Togoland into French and British administrative zones. The Treaty of Versailles, ratified on July 20, 1922, made Togoland a League of Nations Class B mandate, with France controlling roughly two-thirds of its territory and Britain the remainder. Joint control persisted through the early 1950s, with Togoland’s status altered to that of a United Nations trust territory. In May 1956, London authorized a referendum to decide the fate of British Togoland, and a majority of voters chose to join Britain’s Gold Coast colony, forming the newly independent nation of Ghana in March 1957. Meanwhile, in October 1956, a similar referendum in French Togoland produced an overwhelming vote in favor of autonomy within the French union. Nicolas Grunitzky was elected as the country’s first prime minister, but “irregularities” in that vote prompted another election in April 1958, supervised by the United Nations. Sylvanus Olympio—Grunitzky’s brother-in-law and leader since 1946 of Togo’s dominant party, the Committee of Togolese Unity— replaced Grunitzky as prime minister. Six months later, in October 1958, France announced that it would grant Togo full independence as of April 27, 1960. Olympio remained in office as prime minister until April 9, 1961, when the adoption of a new constitution required elections to seat a president for a seven-year term. Nicolas Grunitzky challenged Olympio for that office, but a statute banned his Togolese Progressive Party from participating in the contest, whereupon Olympio swept the field with 90 percent of the popular vote. Grunitzky fled into exile, while other opposition leaders were imprisoned. As president, Olympio adopted a pro-Western foreign policy that endeared him to U.S. presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy. On the domestic front, Olympio terrorized opponents with a private militia, the Ablode Sodjas, and supported dissident guerrilla forces opposing President Kwame Nkrumah in neighboring Ghana. Nkrumah returned the favor, joining French intelligence officers to bankroll Olympio’s enemies. Olympio’s ultimate downfall, however, stemmed from dissatisfaction among some 300 Togolese who had served in the French colonial army, but were then discharged with the advent of full independence. Former sergeant Emmanuel Bodjollé chaired a ninemember Insurrection Committee, created to topple Olympio’s regime, and led the final group of 30-odd men who killed the president in January 1963, while arresting other leading members of his government. The day after Olympio’s murder, President Kennedy issued a statement from Washington, saying, “President Olympio’s tragic assassination is a blow to the progress of stable government in Africa. It is also a loss not only for his own country but for all those who knew him here in the United States.” In Togo, Emmanuel Bodjollé held power in the name of the Insurrection Committee for two days, then ceded the presidency to Nicolas Grunitzky, who had

385

386

O P E R AT I O N W R AT H O F G O D

returned from exile on January 16. Grunitzky sought to unify the country, inviting various parties to join in his administration, but the task was beyond him. He survived on abortive coup d’état, on November 21, 1966, then was ousted by Lieutenant Colonel Étienne Eyadéma Gnassingbé on January 13, 1967. Grunitzky decamped for Paris, and Gnassingbé installed himself as Togo’s president on April 14, 1967. Declaring that that democracy in Africa “moves along at its own pace and in its own way,” Gnassingbé remained in office until February 5, 2005, when he died in a plane crash, on a visit to Tunisia. His son, Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé, assumed the presidency three months later and rules Togo today. Despite President Kennedy’s praise for Sylvanus Olympio, rumors persist that the United States sanctioned and/or participated in his assassination. Specifically, some Togolese believe that then-ambassador Leon Poullada deliberately left Olympio exposed to his enemies in the U.S. embassy compound, alerting his French counterpart in Lomé to tell the rebels where they could find their target. The late president’s son, Gilchrist Olympio, presently leads Togo’s largest opposition party, the Union of Forces for Change. Further Reading Houngnikpo, Mathruin. Determinants of Democratization in Africa: A Comparative Study of Benin and Togo. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001. Melady, Thomas, and Margaret Melady. Ten African Heroes: The Sweep of Independence in Black Africa. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011. Schwab, Peter. Designing West Africa: Prelude to 21st Century Calamity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Seely, Jennifer. The Legacies of Transition Governments in Africa: The Cases of Benin and Togo. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

OPERATION WRATH OF GOD (1972–1992) On September 5, 1972, eight members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September penetrated the Olympic village in Munich, West Germany, seizing 11 Israeli athletes as hostages. The gunmen demanded freedom for 234 prisoners held in Israeli jails, as well as for founders of the violent Red Army Faction incarcerated in Germany. On September 6, a botched rescue attempt by German police left five of the terrorists and all 11 of the hostages dead. Three of the raiders were captured alive and jailed pending trial, then were released in October 1972, after Black September guerrillas hijacked a Lufthansa airliner. The airline also paid Black September a $5 million ransom, prompting furious Israelis to charge that officials in Bonn had staged the event to prevent further terrorist raids in West Germany. Prior to the Lufthansa skyjacking, on September 8, Israeli warplanes had already bombed strongholds of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon and Syria, killing some 200 persons, but Prime Minister Golda

O P E R AT I O N W R AT H O F G O D

Meir sought a more direct response against Black September and its allies. To that end, she created and chaired “Committee X,” with Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, Mossad director Zvi Zamir, and General Aharon Yariv. The resultant assassination campaign—variously dubbed “Operation Wrath of God” and sometimes “Operation Bayonet”—was conceived, in the words of Mossad deputy director David Kimche “not so much revenge but mainly to make them [the terrorists] frightened. We wanted to make them look over their shoulders and feel that we are upon them.” Mossad agent Michael Harari supervised creation of a 15-member team, divided into five squads designated by letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Taken in alphabetical order, the group included two skilled assassins, called Alefs; two guards for the killers, designated Bets; two agents labeled Hets, who established cover by renting apartments and vehicles; seven Ayin operatives who mounted surveillance on targets and mapped escape routes; and two Qoph members responsible for communications. Thus organized, Operation Wrath of God proceeded to hunt down its prey. The first to die was Wael Zwaiter, a PLO spokesman ambushed in Rome on October 16, 1972, shot 11 times in honor of the slain Israeli athletes. Next, in Paris, PLO representative Dr. Mahmoud Hamshari was fatally injured by a booby-trapped telephone on December 8, 1972, dying from his wounds on January 9, 1973. Details remain vague on a third reported killing, around the same time, of a Palestinian activist “expertly pushed” under a London bus. Two weeks after Dr. Hamshari’s death, on January 24, 1973, another Israeli bomb killed Jordanian Hussein Al Bashir, representative of the PLO’s Fatah political party, in his room at the Olympic Hotel in Nicosia. Dr. Basil al-Kubaissi, a law professor at the American University of Beirut, died in a drive-by shooting on April 6, 1973, prompted by suspicion that he helped supply Black September with weapons. Three more targets in Lebanon—Black September operations leader Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar, PLO chief of operations Kamal Adwan, and PLO executive committee member Kamal Nasser—lived in heavily guarded homes that frustrated normal assassination methods. To eliminate them, Israel launched “Operation Spring of Youth” as a Wrath of God special project, enlisting Israeli Defense Forces commandos for an amphibious landing, supported by naval missile boats offshore. Disguised as civilians, some dressed as women, the raiders struck by night, killing their intended targets, along with al- Najjar’s wife, two Lebanese police officers, and an Italian citizen. As part of the same operation, Israeli paratroopers struck at local headquarters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and at several PLO facilities nearby. Estimates of the final death toll ranged from 12 to 100 PLO and PFLP members, plus two Israelis. After that sweep, Operation Wrath of God proceeded in its established style. On April 11, 1973, a hotel bombing in Athens killed Zaiad Muchasi, Hussein

387

388

O P E R AT I O N W R AT H O F G O D

Al Bashir’s replacement as Fatah’s front man in Cyprus. A short time later, while en route to raid Rome’s office of El Al Airlines, Black September activists Abdel Hadi Nakaa and Abdel Hamid Shibi suffered fatal wounds from an explosion in their car. (Police in that case blamed a “faulty detonator” and closed the case.) On June 28, 1973, another car bombing in Paris claimed the life of Mohamed Boudia, Algerian-born coordinator of PFLP terrorist actions for Europe at large. High on the list of Israeli targets was “Red Prince” Ali Hassan Salameh, founder of Fatah’s “Force 17” commando unit and alleged mastermind of the Munich Olympics massacre. Mossad agents believed they had tracked Salameh to Lillehammer, Norway, in summer of 1973, but when they struck on July 21, they actually killed Ahmed Bouchiki, an innocent Moroccan waiter with no link to Arab terrorists. Local police captured five members of the hit team, all of whom were convicted and sentenced to prison, then released and deported to Israel in 1975. Six months after that fiasco, the Mossad tried again for Salameh, this time in Switzerland. Expecting him to meet PLO leaders at a church on January 12, 1974, two Israeli assassins and killed three men of Arab appearance, but failed to locate Salameh. Another false lead placed Salameh in London, where a freelance female assassin seduced and killed an Israeli agent at the Europa House Hotel. Traced to her home in Amsterdam, that killer was in turn eliminated by Mossad gunmen on August 21, 1974. Michael Harari then officially called off the plot to kill Salameh, but agents made one more try, killing a security guard at Salameh’s alleged safe house in Tarifa, Spain. Once again, they missed their main prize. Embarrassed by the Lillehammer scandal, Golda Meir suspended Operation Wrath of God for the remainder of her term in office. Successor Menachem Begin revived the program in 1977, including the contract on Ali Salameh. Agents traced him to Beirut in November 1978, and a three-member team mounted surveillance on a neighborhood around Rue Verdun that Salameh was said to frequent. At 3:35 P.M. on January 22, 1979, a car bomb detonated by remote control killed Salameh, four bodyguards, and four bystanders— including a German nun—while wounding 18 others. And the murders continued. On December 15, 1979, Palestinians Ali Salem Ahmed and Ibrahim Abdul Aziz were gunned down at close range with silenced weapons, in Cyprus. Assassins struck twice in Rome on June 17, 1982, shooting PLO official Nazeyh Mayer at his home, then killing another PLO member, Kamal Husain, with a car bomb seven hours later. Fadl Dani, deputy director of the PLO in Paris, died when a bomb demolished his car on July 23, 1982. Two gunmen on a motorcycle executed PLO official Mamoun Meraish in Athens, on August 21, 1983. Khaled Ahmed Nazal, secretary general of a PLO splinter faction, was shot four times outside an Athens hotel on June 10, 1986.

O P E R AT I O N W R AT H O F G O D

Four months later, on October 21, senior PLO official Munzer Abu Ghazala died in an Athens car bombing. On February 14, 1988, yet another car bomb killed Hamdi Adwan and Abu Al Hassan in Limassol, Cyprus, wounding a third passenger in the vehicle. Confusion surrounds some killings attributed to Operation Wrath of God. Victims in those cases include PLO representative Said Hammami, shot in London on January 4, 1978; Ezzedine Kalak, chief of the PLO’s Paris bureau, and deputy Hamad Adnan, killed in a raid on their office that left also three other persons wounded on August 3, 1978; Zuheir Mohsen, head of PLO military operations, shot outside a casino in Cannes, France, on July 27, 1979; PLO spokesman Naim Khader, killed in Brussels, Belgium, on June 1, 1981; Abu Daoud, self-proclaimed planner of the Munich massacre, wounded by gunshots at a café in Warsaw, Poland, on August 1, 1981; PLO official Nabil Wadi Aranki, murdered in Madrid, Spain, on March 1, 1982; and PLO chief of intelligence Atef Bseiso, slain by two gunmen with silenced pistols in Paris, on June 8, 1992. Whereas various authors credit Wrath of God agents with all those assassinations, other sources blame the Hammami, Kalak, Adnan, and Bseiso murders on a rival Palestinian terrorist group, the Abu Nidal Organization. Abu Daoud blamed his shooting on a Palestinian double agent for Mossad, killed by the PLO in 1991. Controversy also surrounds the fate of two Munich hostage-takers liberated after the Lufthansa hijacking in October 1972, Adnan Al-Gashey and Mohammed Safady. Various published accounts claim that Israeli agents found and executed both men, years after the Munich massacre, but other sources disagree. Israeli author Aaron Klein asserts that Al-Gashey died from natural causes in the latter part of the 1970s, and Lebanese Christian Phalangists murdered Safady sometime in the early 1980s. Meanwhile, in 2004, PLO veteran Tawfiq Tirawi told Klein that Safady was still “as alive as you are,” refusing to disclose his location. The third Munich survivor, Jamal Al-Gashey (cousin of Adnan), was alive as late as 1999, when he sat for interviews with reporters in North Africa. Aside from outright assassinations, Operation Wrath of God engaged in an extensive letter-bombing campaign that wounded various persons. Identified victims include: Emile Khayyat, a Rif Bank employee in Beirut (July 18, 1972); Dr. Anis Sayegh, director of the PLO Research Center in Beirut (July 19, 1972); Ahmad Wafi, a “Palestinian intellectual” in Algiers (October 25, 1972); PLO representative Mustafa Awad Zaid and two bystanders in Tripoli (October 25, 1972); two employees of Beirut’s Import-Export Bank (October 26, 1972); an Egyptian police officer checking suspicious parcels (October 26, 1972); Omar Sufan, a representative of the Red Crescent humanitarian organization in Stockholm (November 29, 1972); Palestinian student leader Adnan Hammad in Germany (November 29, 1972); three post office employees in Tunis

389

390

O P E R AT I O N W R AT H O F G O D

(November 29, 1972); and Palestinian student leader Ahmed Awadallah in Copenhagen (November 30, 1972). When not engaged in lethal operations, Wrath of God agents practice psychological warfare against their enemies, publishing obituaries of Palestinian activists still alive, sometimes blackmailing others to leave the movement with threats of releasing embarrassing personal information. In the wake of some assassinations, Mossad agents also sent flowers to surviving relatives of the victims, with cards reading “A reminder we do not forget or forgive.” Predictably, Black September activists sought to retaliate for Israel’s campaign of retribution. Palestinian letter bombs were mailed to Israeli diplomatic missions around the world in September and October 1972, one claiming the life of Ami Shachori, agricultural counselor at Israel’s embassy in London, on September 19. On December 28, 1972, four Black September gunmen invaded the Israeli embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, seizing 12 hostages as a diversion from plans to assassinate Golda Meir on an upcoming visit to Pope Paul VI in Rome. Mossad agents foiled that conspiracy, but they could not protect Israelis worldwide. Baruch Cohen, representing Mossad in Madrid, was murdered by a Palestinian contact on January 23, 1973. Black September members also killed Vittorio Olivares, an Italian El Al employee in Rome, four months later, and executed Colonel Yosef Alon, Israeli military attaché to the United States, in Chevy Chase, Maryland, on July 1, 1973. Israel’s retaliation against Black September has inspired two feature films. Michael Anderson directed Sword of Gideon for HBO in November 1986, and Steven Spielberg produced Munich for the big screen in December 2005. The latter film garnered many award nominations, including five Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (Spielberg), Best Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Original Score. Although losing out on all of those, it won a Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Best Ensemble Cast; Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards for Best Director and Best Picture; and Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. Further Reading Byman, Daniel. A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Jonas, George. Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys Ltd., 1984. Klein, Aaron. Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel’s Deadly Response. New York: Random House, 2005. Nasr, Kameel. Arab and Israeli Terrorism: The Causes and Effects of Political Violence, 1936–1993. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 1996. Reeve, Simon. One Day in September: The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli Revenge Operation “Wrath of God.” New York: Arcade Publishing, 2000.

OSMAN II

OSMAN II (1604–1622) On May 19, 1622, soldiers of the Turkish Janissary corps staged an uprising against Emperor Osman II of the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople (now Istanbul). After holding Osman captive overnight in the capital city’s Yedikule Fortress, leaders of the rebellion sent a soldier to kill him on May 20. The assassin, accompanied by several guards, attempted to strangle Osman with a bowstring, but the 18-year-old emperor slipped a hand under the noose, dislodging it, and knocked his would-be slayer to the floor. A brawl ensued, during which Osman’s former grand vizier “seized him by the most sensible part of his body,” while another soldier clubbed him with the blunt head of an axe. Barely conscious and unable to resist further, Osmon was finally throttled to death by his appointed executioner. Osman II—widely known to his subjects as Genç Osman (“Osman the Young”)—was born at Constantinople’s Topkapi Palace on November 3, 1604, the son of Sultan Ahmed I. His Greek mother supervised Osman’s education, ensuring his fluency in Arabic, Greek, Italian, Latin and Persian, plus the “harem sign language” employed by members of the royal court to communicate with deaf-mute pages, doormen, eunuchs, and executioners. From his youth, Osman was also recognized as an accomplished poet. Typhus claimed Ahmed I’s life on November 22, 1617, whereupon he was succeeded by his brother, Mustafa I. Prior to Ahmed’s death, he had confined Mustafa under house arrest in a wing of the imperial harem from age 12, beginning in 1603. That practice—known as kafes (“the cage”)—was routine treatment for royal heirs, though some Ottoman sultans went further, killing their brothers to weed out potential rivals. Because Mustafa had been spared, and the Imperial Council deemed Osman too young to rule at age 13, Mustafa became the first royal brother in 14 generations to succeed a sultan. Unfortunately for Mustafa—dubbed “The Intestable” (literally, incompetent to make a will)—and was deposed after less than a year on the throne, when Osman led a coup d’état against him in summer of 1618. While replacing his uncle as sultan, however, Osman did not have Mustafa killed. Eager to prove himself, Osman set out to make his mark against neighboring states. In September 1618, he negotiated the Treaty of Serav, ending a threeyear war between the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Persia (now Iran), establishing a firm border between the two countries and exacting annual tribute from Persia amounting to 100 wagonloads of treasure. Next, in the wake of raids launched from Poland, Osman threatened King Sigismund III with invasion and sacking of Kraków. When bluster failed, Osman invaded Moldavia to defeat a combined Polish–Lithuanian army at the Battle of Cecora, waged between September 17 and October 7, 1620. Victorious in that engagement, Osman next led an army of some 250,000 men from Constantinople to conquer Ukraine, in 1621. This time, defenders stopped him at the month-long

391

392

OSMAN II

Battle of Khotyn (September 2 to October 9, 1621), inflicting 42,000 Ottoman casualties against losses of 14,500. Compelled to sue for peace, Osman signed the Treaty of Khotyn, which left standing borders intact, and retreated to consider future options. Osman blamed his Janissaries for the embarrassing loss at Khotyn. Despite the translation of their name—“new soldiers”—the Janissary corps had been created in 1365, under Sultan Murad I, as the empire’s first standing army, doubling as palace guards, police, and firefighters during peacetime. Most were Christians, drafted under the devs¸ irme system that required peasant families to offer sons as feudal “dues” paid to the sultan. As the Ottoman Empire expanded, draftees included Bulgarians, Croats, Ukrainians, Russians, and other foreigners dragooned into service. Despite their life of virtual slavery, Janissaries cultivated a strong sense of pride in their martial skills and ornate uniforms. Osman’s attempt to blame them solely for the failure of his Ukrainian campaign was insulting enough. Beyond condemning their “greed and indiscipline,” Osman voiced fears of becoming “subject to his own slaves.” Word of his plan to recruit a new army comprised entirely of ethnic Turks threatened the Janissaries’ very existence—and thereby sealed the young emperor’s fate. After Osman’s assassination, the rebels restored Mustafa I as sultan, but if they expected gratitude, they were gravely mistaken. Mustafa ordered the coup’s leaders arrested and executed, although the Janissary corps itself survived. Mustafa, seemingly deranged, appeared to think that his murdered nephew was still alive and spent days searching the Topkapi Palace, knocking on doors and calling out Osman’s name, pleading for Osman to relieve him from the task of ruling an empire. Osman could not hear him, but others at court were listening, moving to depose Mustafa for the second time in 1623, replacing him with Osman’s 11-year-old half-brother, Murad IV. Controlled by his mother, Kösem Sultan, for the first nine years of his reign, Murad watched his once-prosperous empire fall into anarchy. Persia quickly invaded Iraq, revolts flared in northern Anatolia, and Janissaries rose against the throne once more in 1631, storming the palace and killing the grand vizier, with other members of Murad’s court. Finally asserting himself at age 21, Murad suppressed that rebellion, did his best to reform corrupt governmental practices, and retaliated in force against Persia, capturing Baghdad in 1638. The Treaty of Zuhab, signed on May 17, 1639, restored Mesopotamia to the Ottoman Empire, establishing borders that would remain secure until World War I. Renowned for his personal strength, wielding a 132-pound mace in battle, Murad IV nonetheless died unexpectedly on February 9, 1640, at age 27. Conflicting stories of his death blame gout and cirrhosis of the liver—ironic, if true, because Murad had banned alcohol from his kingdom eight years earlier.

OUKO, JOHN ROBERT

Further Reading Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1923. New York: Basic Books, 2006. Goffman, Daniel. The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Goodwin, Jason. Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Picador, 1998. Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Piterberg, Gabriel. An Ottoman Tragedy: History and Historiography at Play. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

OUKO, JOHN ROBERT (1931–1990) On the night of February 12–13, 1990, Minister of Foreign Affairs John Ouko disappeared from his country home on a farm at Koru, in western Kenya’s Nyanza Province. Housemaid Selina Ndalo said she was awakened around 3:00 A.M. by a sound like a door slamming, and reached her window in time to see a white car leaving the property. Three hours later, Francis Cheruyot, an employee at the nearby Rongo post office, claimed he saw a similar car with four occupants drive past the post office twice. Cheruyot identified one of the passengers as Hezekiah Oyugi, chief of internal security for the Republic of Kenya, but when pressed by police he refused to sign a statement to that effect. A local herdboy found Ouko’s body at 1:00 P.M., at Got Alila Hill, less than two miles from Ouko’s home, but he failed to notify authorities. Searchers finally located Ouko on February 16, an autopsy revealing one gunshot to the head. Ouko’s right leg was also broken in two places, and his body was partially burned. Other evidence recovered at the scene included a pistol (but no bullet), a can of gasoline, a torch and matches, and “a single Caucasian hair.” Investigators from Scotland Yard arrested Hezekiah Oyugi and Energy Minister Nicholas Biwott as murder suspects, but both were later discharged for lack of evidence. John Robert Ouko was born on March 31, 1931, in the village of Nyahera, in Nyanza Province. After graduating from Siriba Teachers Training College, he worked as a primary school teacher until 1955, then was appointed to serve as a revenue officer in the Kisii district of his native province, inhabited primarily by members of the Bantu-speaking AbaGusii ethnic group. Three years later, he enrolled at Ethiopia’s Haile Selassie I University (now Addis Ababa University), graduating in 1962 with a bachelor’s degree in public administration, economics, and political science. From there, Ouko proceeded to Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, where he earned a master’s degree in international relations and diplomacy. Concurrent with his ongoing higher education, in early 1963, Ouko was appointed to work as an assistant secretary for Kenya’s last British colonial

393

394

O U KO, J O H N R O B E R T

governor Malcolm MacDonald. With the advent of independence, in December 1963, he was posted as a permanent secretary to the ministry of works under Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta. Kenyatta advanced to the presidency in December 1964, leading Kenya into the East Africa Common Services Organization (later the East African Community) with Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. While remaining with the ministry of works, Ouko received an honorary PhD from Pacific Lutheran University in Seattle, Washington, in 1971. Dissension within the East African Community forced its dissolution in 1977, whereupon Ouko was promoted to serve as Kenya’s minister for economic planning and community affairs. Two years later, he was elected to parliament from Kisumu, reelected in 1983 and 1988 as a member of the nation’s only legal political party, the Kenya African National Union. In 1990, while pursuing doctoral studied at the University of Nairobi, he advanced to serve as Kenya’s minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation. On January 27 of that year, he visited Washington, D.C., with Kenyan president Daniel Toroitich arap Moi and 82 other officials, for a widely publicized “prayer breakfast” with U.S. president George H. W. Bush. Returning Nairobi on February 4, Ouko spent the following morning in meetings with President Moi, Japan’s ambassador to Kenya, the Canadian high commissioner, and various cabinet ministers, before proceeding to his farm at Koru, where he was abducted and killed one week later. Kenyan authorities initially claimed that Ouko had committed suicide, a finding made ridiculous by evidence that he was shot, then set afire. Public outcry forced President Moi to seek help from Britain, in the person of Detective Superintendent John Troon and two other officers from New Scotland Yard’s International Organized Crime Branch and a forensic pathologist provided by the Home Office. Troon and company first examined rumors that President Moi held a grudge against Ouko, allegedly based on Ouko meeting with President Bush in Washington, while Moi was snubbed. In fact, no evidence emerged of Ouko ever meeting Bush, and the investigators turned to other suspects. One source of conflict involved disputes within Ouko’s own family, dating from 1985. Witnesses including Ouko’s wife, three siblings, and the family’s physician claimed that brother Barrack Ouko blamed John for an unwelcome political transfer from Nakuru, in the Rift Valley Province, to the capital at Nairobi. Another brother, Collins Ouko, allegedly supported Barrack in that feud, extending animosity to their mother and threatening her life. In his final report of August 1990, Detective Superintendent Troon wrote that, with respect to Ouko’s immediate family, “I am not satisfied that they have told me everything they know. There appears to be a shroud of fear surrounding the whole family which prevents them fully disclosing what I believe some of them must know.”

OUKO, JOHN ROBERT

Meanwhile, the investigators also probed claims that Ouko was killed as a result of fraud allegations surrounding the Kisumu Town Council. That tale involved claims of bribery at a local molasses plant, which Ouko threatened to expose. That case involved Domenico Airaghi and his mistress, self-described “international escort” Marianne Briner-Mattern, who served as directors of BAK International, a firm based in Switzerland. They had approached Ouko about reopening the molasses plant in Kisumu, with Airaghi seeking $1 million to complete a feasibility study, finally settling for $300,000. Ouko had canceled the project in November 1987, and Troon found it unlikely that the alleged conspirators would have waited more than two years to retaliate against him. Troon also deemed Airaghi and Briner-Mattern “truthful and honest,” despite the fact of Airaghi’s March 1987 conviction on perjury charges in Italy, resulting in a 30-month prison term and a fine of 2 million lire, upheld on appeal in 1991. Critics dismissed Troon’s final report as “fatally flawed,” persisting with investigations into Ouko’s death. President Moi launched a public inquiry, chaired by Chief Justice Evans Gicheru, in October 1990. In its 13th month, with Detective Superintendent Troon on the witness stand in Nairobi, Moi ended the inquiry abruptly, stating that Troon was urgently required in London. Troon never returned to Kenya, and the commission dissolved without issuing a final report. Soon afterward, Kenyan police began a new inquiry, reexamining Ouko’s dealings with BAK International, including an anonymous letter mailed from Rome, claiming that “Mrs. Marianne and Mr. Airaghi were the masterminds behind the murder of the late Dr. Ouko.” In that instance, police “found no evidence to support the allegations.” Officers also detained 10 government officials, including Hezekiah Oyugi and Energy Minister Nicholas Biwott, but ultimately filed no charges against them. A district commissioner from Nakuru, Jonah Anguka, was charged with killing Ouko, then was acquitted in 1992, his trial judge declaring that “The manner the heinous act was planned and eventually executed . . . was so neat and professional that it could not have been undertaken by an ordinary person in the nature of the accused.” President Emilio Mwai Kibaki convened a Parliamentary Select Committee of Inquiry in March 2003, which revisited claims that President Moi had “banished” Ouko during their 1990 visit to Washington, stripping him of his ministerial rank and sending him home on a separate flight, but airline records disproved the latter claim conclusively. Dissension within the committee, including several resignations, doomed it to failure. The panel disbanded in 2005, claiming “interference” with its deliberations, and its incomplete report sank without a ripple in the Kenyan House of Assembly, with several committee members voting against its final endorsement. The last word on Ouko’s assassination, thus far, came in the form of another parliamentary report, issued in 2010. That document alleged that Ouko was

395

396

O U KO, J O H N R O B E R T

MAU MAU REBELLION After 57 years of British colonial rule, Kikuyu nationalists organized the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA) to throw off foreign domination. The group’s popular name—“Mau Mau”—was apparently an acronym for the Swahili phrase Mzungu Aende Ulaya, Mwafrika Apate Uhuru (“Let the European go back to Europe, let the African regain independence”). Other sources claim it was an anagram of Uma Uma (“Get out! Get out!”). In either case, the sentiment was clear, and the Mau Maus adopted armed struggle to achieve their goal. The resultant guerrilla war—or “emergency,” in British terms—claimed its first known European victim near Thika, on October 3, 1952, and continued until the capture of rebel leader Dedan Kimathi on October 21, 1956, leading to his execution on February 18, 1957. Although statistics are disputed, official tabulations list 200 British and African security forces killed, against 12,000 Mau Maus slain. Unofficial tallies place Mau Mau losses closer to 20,000, with civilian deaths including 32 Europeans, 26, Asians, and 1,819 Africans. The Lari massacre of March 25–26, 1953, killed at least 150 Kikuyus, burned alive in their huts by Mau Maus for supporting the colonial regime.

killed at one of President Moi’s official residences, and called for further investigation of various ex-officials including Nicholas Biwott (who still denies any involvement in the crime). Parliament rejected the report in December 2010, citing dissent within the committee that filed it. Ouko’s murder remains officially unsolved today. Further Reading Branch, David. Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963–2011. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011. Cohen, David, and E. S. Odhiambo. The Risks of Knowledge: Investigations into the Death of the Hon. Minister John Robert Ouko in Kenya, 1990. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004. Hornsby, Charles. Kenya: A History Since Independence. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012.

P PALME, SVEN OLOF JOACHIM (1927–1986) On the night of February 28, 1986, Swedish prime minister Olof Palme walked from their residence in Stockholm to the nearby Grand Cinema theater. Despite his high position in the government, Palme preferred to travel without bodyguards whenever possible, and the Palmes were unguarded on this occasion. After the film—a Swedish comedy, The Mozart Brothers—the Palmes began walking home along Sveavägen Street, near the city’s center. At 11:21 P.M., a lone individual approached them from behind and fired two close-range gunshots from a .357 Magnum revolver. The first bullet struck Olof, and the second wounded Lisbet Palme. Bystanders saw the shooter flee on foot and disappear before police were summoned to the scene. An ambulance arrived 11:25 P.M., transporting the victims to Sabbatsberg Hospital, where Olof Palme died at 12:06 A.M. on March 1. Lisbet Palme survived her relatively minor wound and later identified the gunman as drug addict Carl Gustaf Christer Pettersson, previously convicted of manslaughter in a 1970 stabbing, from a police lineup. Convicted of Palme’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988, Pettersson won reversal of that verdict in 1989, with the appellate court citing lack of evidence. He sued Stockholm police for defamation and received an award of $50,000, which he spent on drugs and alcohol. The crime remains officially unsolved today. Olof Palme was born on January 30, 1927, to an affluent family in the Östermalm district of Stockholm. Poor health kept him from school in early childhood, receiving his first education from private tutors, but he subsequently graduated from the Sigtuna School of Liberal Arts at age 17 and proceeded into mandatory military service. Discharged as a captain, Palme enrolled at the University of Stockholm, then attended Ohio’s Kenyon College on a scholarship, earning his BA there in 1948. Hitchhiking through the United States and Mexico acquainted him with poverty, racism, and ongoing labor struggles, which prompted Palme to join the Swedish Social Democratic Party in 1949. In 1951, he was elected president of the Swedish National Union of Students, traveling widely through Europe and Asia over the next two years. Palme formally entered politics in 1953, as a secretary for Prime Minister Tage Erlander. By 1955, he was a board member of the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League, lecturing at Bommersvik, the Youth League’s college in

398

PA L M E , S V E N O L O F J OAC H I M

Södertälje. Elected to parliament in 1957, he subsequently joined the Agency for International Assistance and was placed in charge of recommending aid to developing countries. The year 1963 saw him promoted to serve as minister without portfolio in Prime Minister Erlander’s cabinet, promoted yet again in 1965 to become minister of transport and communications, then becoming minister of education in 1967. The latter post, ironically, made Palme a target of left-wing student protests against plans to “reform” Sweden’s university system. Despite that upheaval, including brief occupation of The murder of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme the Student Union Building remains unsolved today. (Photo by Peter Jordan/ at Holländargatan University, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images) Palme remained popular within the Social Democratic Party and was chosen to succeed Tage Erlander as prime minister on October 14, 1969, holding that post until October 8, 1976. During his first term as prime minister, Palme earned a reputation as a “revolutionary reformist,” spearheading revision of Sweden’s 166-year-old constitution, abolishing its Privy Council and stripping King Carl XVI Gustaf of ruling authority, overhauling parliament from a bicameral to a unicameral system, promoting a law that ensured job security, establishing government child care centers, overhauling the public health system, and in general expanding the national welfare state. Despite those sweeping reforms, tax rates remained low by European standards, and Palme preached “equality of sacrifice” including wage restraints. Despite those achievements—or because of them—Sweden’s Centre Party won a majority in parliament and replaced Palme with Prime Minister Thorbjörn Fälldin, in October 1976. Fälldin held office until October 1982—with a one-year interruption when the Liberal People’s Party managed to elect Prime Minister Ola Ullsten in 1978–1979—but his policy on nuclear power, coupled with tax issues, brought Palme and the Social Democrats back to power on October 8, 1982. Palme’s popularity remained strong, and his marriage survived

PA L M E , S V E N O L O F J O A C H I M

numerous extramarital affairs, including one with “psychic” actress Shirley MacLaine (who claimed he was a reincarnation of Emperor Charlemagne). He survived three years and 143 days in his second term as prime minister. Physical evidence was sparse in Palme’s murder. Revolvers do not eject cartridge cases, and although police test-fired some 500 revolvers, they failed to locate the murder weapon. Neither were they aided by 130 false confessions to the crime from mentally unbalanced individuals. Detectives pursued 10 Magnum revolvers that were reported stolen prior to the killing and found all but one, a pistol owned by Swedish filmmaker Arne Sucksdorff that went missing in 1977. The presumed thief was a friend of Stockholm drug dealer Sigvard “Sigge” Cedergren—who, on his deathbed in March 1996, claimed he had loaned “a gun of the same type” to assassination suspect Carl Pettersson in December 1985. Pettersson phoned Mårten Palme, son of the murdered prime minister, in September 2004, saying he had something to tell the family. Before they could meet, on September 16, Pettersson suffered critical head injuries in obscure circumstances and lapsed into a coma, dying at Karolinska University Hospital 13 days later. In February 2006, a television documentary aired comments from friends of Pettersson, claiming he confessed the Palme slaying to them and described it as a case of mistaken identity. Meaning to kill a drug dealer who resembled Palme and who commonly walked along Sveavägen Street, Pettersson allegedly shot the wrong man. Or did he? Aside from Sigvard Cedergren’s missing pistol, police also examined a .357 stolen from Haparanda in 1983, with 91 Teflon-coated bullets designed to pierce metal. The gun was supposedly used in a post office holdup at Mockfjärd that same year, and fragments of a slug fired there possessed the same isotopic composition as bullets from the Palme assassination. The gun in question was pulled from a lake at Dalarna in autumn 2006, identified by its serial number, but corrosion prevented test-firing. Thus, the bullets, although indistinguishable, could be traced no further than their manufacturer, without any connection to a specific weapon. Conspiracy theories abound in Palme’s murder case. Right-wing extremist Victor Gunnarsson was questioned as a suspect on four occasions between March and April 1986, also subjected to wiretap surveillance, but faced no charges in the case. (He later moved to North Carolina, where an ex-policeman murdered him in December 1993.) Several Kurds living in Sweden, members of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), were also questioned and released for lack of evidence, though allegations of PKK involvement in the slaying persisted as late as 2008. In September 1996, former police colonel Eugene de Kock told South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission that Palme was murdered to silence his criticism of apartheid and end his financial support for Nelson

399

400

PA L M E , S V E N O L O F J OAC H I M

Mandela’s African National Congress. De Kock named the triggerman as ex-police major Craig Williamson, linked to several other high-profile killings, but Williamson’s former superior, Brigadier Johannes Coetzee, named a member of the former Rhodesian army’s Selous Scouts as the killer. A third version, advanced by Swedish mercenary Bertil Wedin from exile in Cyprus, identified one Peter Caselton as the pro-apartheid gunman, acting as a part of “Operation Longreach.” Swedish police visited South Africa in October 1996 but found no evidence supporting any of those claims. Nonetheless, a book written in 2007 named yet another apartheid supporter—Athol “Ivan the Terrible” Visser—as Palme’s assassin. Meanwhile, in 2005, author Jan Bondeson blamed Palme’s murder on the arms trade with India, claiming that Palme had used his acquaintance with Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to land an artillery contract for the Bofors armament company valued at 8.4 billion Swedish kronor ($1.2 billion). Bondeson wrote that Palme was unaware of “shady” middlemen bribing Indian officials to secure the deal until the morning of his murder, when he was informed of the sordid details by Iraqi ambassador Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf. Enraged, Palme allegedly threatened to scuttle the deal and was murdered to ensure his silence. Other theories involve Germany’s Red Army Faction, which claimed credit for Palme’s murder in a phone call to a London newspaper; Chilean neo-fascist Roberto Thieme, acting in retaliation for Palme granting asylum to exiled leftist Chileans; far-right extremist elements within the Swedish Police Service; the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, striking to prevent Palme from airing information on the Iran-Contra scandal; and Yugoslavia’s State Security Administration, named by the German magazine Focus in January 2011, based on “official German interrogation records” from an unrelated case in 2008. In 1998, a cinematic conspiracy thriller, Sista kontraktet (The Last Contract), portrayed Palme’s murder as the work of a hired assassin, slain for his antiwar beliefs and more specifically for rejecting deployment of nuclear weapons in Sweden. A detective from Britain’s Special Branch, portrayed by actor Mikael Persbrandt, finds his investigation obstructed by Swedish police. Further Reading Bondeson, Jan. Blood on the Snow: The Killing of Olof Palme. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. Cooper, H.H.A., and Lawrence Redlinger. The Murder of Olof Palme: A Tale of Assassination, Deception and Intrigue. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004. Derfler, Leslie. The Fall and Rise of Political Leaders: Olof Palme, Olusegun Obasanjo, and Indira Gandhi. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Freeman, Ruth. Death of a Statesman: Solution to the Murder of Olof Palme. London: Robert Hale, 1989.

PA R D O L E A L , J A I M E

PARDO LEAL, JAIME (1941–1987) On October 11, 1987, a 14-year-old assassin shot and killed Jaime Pardo Leal, former presidential candidate of the Patriotic Union party, in La Mesa, a city in central Colombia’s Cundinamarca Department. Police killed the young gunman, but subsequent investigation named the man responsible for Pardo’s murder as William Infante, a member of the Medellín drug cartel run by Pablo Escobar. According to authorities, Infante answered directly to a top cartel lieutenant called “The Mexican,” otherwise known as José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha. Prosecutors indicted Rodríguez Gacha and several subordinates for Pardo’s assassination, all but one of them were still at large when their trial began on February 3, 1989. None of them were convicted on that charge, although Infante was caught with a load of cocaine in Miami, Florida, in December 1988, and received a 25-year prison sentence in that case. Colombian police tracked Rodríguez Gacha to a farm at Tolu, on December 15, 1989, killing his son in the ensuing shootout, whereupon Rodríguez Gacha reportedly committed suicide with a hand grenade. Jaime Pardo Leal was born on March 28, 1941, at Ubaque, in Cundinamarca Department. Largely forgotten today, outside of leftist circles in his homeland, Pardo studied at Bogotá’s National University of Colombia, in that school’s Faculty of Law and Political Science, where he was a leading figure in the Colombian Communist Youth movement. After graduation, he served as a judge in Cundinamarca, founded the National Association of Judicial Branch Employees, and served as the union’s first president. Concurrently, he was a member of Colombia’s Communist Party, rising to a seat on its central committee, and was recognized as a driving force behind formation of the Patriotic Union in 1985. The Patriotic Union represented a merger of Colombian communists and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which had waged guerrilla warfare against Colombia’s government since 1964. From its inception, the Patriotic Union suffered threats and violence from right-wing elements and their allies in Colombia’s powerful drug cartels. While advocating Marxist– Leninist policies, the Patriotic Union also denounced government corruption and the flourishing drug trade, thereby ensuring a violent response in Colombia’s atmosphere of chaotic mayhem. Jaime Pardo Leal was among the first victims, with Patriotic Union spokesmen claiming some 4,000 members murdered by 2005. A more conservative tally, published by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2004, listed 1,163 confirmed slayings of party members. Amnesty International, in April 1988, charged the Colombian government and army with pursuing a “deliberate policy of political murder” against the Patriotic Union and its allies, an allegation angrily rejected at the time by President Virgilio Barco Vargas. Despite ongoing decimation of its leadership, the Patriotic Union enjoyed some success in the 1986 campaign, electing 14 federal legislators, plus 14 deputies,

401

402

PA R D O L E A L , J A I M E

MEDELLÍN CARTEL Founded by Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa Vázquez brothers in 1976, the Medellín Cartel became one of the world’s most lucrative and violent organized crime syndicates over the ensuing decade. By 1982, cocaine surpassed coffee as Colombia’s primary export, amounting to 30 percent of all cargo shipped to foreign countries. Defense of their multibilliondollar empire prompted cartel leaders to create a private army, acting in conjunction with corrupt public officials, military leaders, and foreign allies. In early 1982, investigative journalists documented a series of meetings at Puerto Boyacá, involving cartel leaders and high-ranking Colombian military officers, native legislators, industrialists, and cattle ranchers, plus representatives of various U.S. industries. The participants shared animosity toward leftist guerrillas who victimized wealthy targets, resulting in the creation of a paramilitary force dubbed Muerte a Secuestradores (“Death to Kidnappers”). By late 1983, Colombian security agents credited the group with 240 political murders. Rampant narcoterrorism followed, claiming countless lives before the Colombian government responded, orchestrating a campaign that killed Escobar on December 2, 1993, and—at least theoretically—forced the cartel to disband.

351 councilmen, and 23 municipal mayors in local contests. Jaime Pardo Real ran third in the year’s presidential race, with 350,000 votes, but later faced charges of voter intimidation by soldiers of the FARC. In the elections of 1988 the party lost ground, electing only 14 of Colombia’s 1,008 mayors. By that time, a rift had developed between FARC leaders and the Communist Party, with the FARC escalating its guerrilla warfare campaigns. Another Patriotic Union leader, Jose Antequera, was shot and killed on March 3, 1989, during an assassination attempt against President Ernesto Samper. Suspects— including some Colombian military personnel—were tried and convicted in a few of the attacks, but most remain unpunished. Senator Manuel Cepeda Vargas, elected as a Patriotic Union member in July 1994, was murdered in Bogotá three weeks after taking office. Further Reading Bowden, Mark. Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw. New York: Penguin Books, 2002. Dudley, Steven. Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia. London: Routledge, 2004. Leech, Garry. The FARC: The Longest Insurgency. Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing, 2011.

PA R K C H U N G - H E E

Leech, Garry. Killing Peace: Colombia’s Conflict and the Failure of U.S. Intervention. New York: Information Network of the Americas, 2002. Livingstone, Grace, and Jenny Pearce. Inside Colombia: Drugs, Democracy and War. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004. Marcy, William. The Politics of Cocaine: How U.S. Foreign Policy Has Created a Thriving Drug Industry in Central and South America. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2010.

PARK CHUNG-HEE (1917–1979) On the evening of October 26, 1979, President Park Chung-hee held a banquet at his official residence—Cheongwadae, or the Blue House—in Seoul, South Korea. Invited guests included chief presidential bodyguard Cha Jicheol, Army Chief of Staff Jeong Seung-hwa, Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) director Kim Jaegyu, Chief Secretary Kim Gye-won, and popular singer Sim Soo-bong, and female college student Shin Jae-soon. Cha and Director Kim were bitter rivals, based on personal antagonism and Cha’s ongoing efforts to usurp KCIA authority, contravening the agency’s manipulation of elections for his own benefit. During the banquet, a quarrel erupted over the proper means of dealing with dissident protesters and opposition forces in the National Assembly. Park and Cha argued that their enemies should be “mowed down with tanks,” whereas Director Kim struck a more moderate tone—then left the dining hall to consult with two of his aides, KCIA chief agent Park Seon-ho and Colonel Park Heung-ju in an adjoining chamber. Kim returned at 7:41 P.M., armed with a pistol, shooting Cha in the arm and President Park in the chest. His gun jammed when he tried to shoot Cha again, whereupon Director Kim ran out to fetch another pistol and returned, shooting Cha in the abdomen and killing President Park with a shot to Rebel soldiers assassinated South Korean President Park Chung-hee. (Getty Images) the head.

403

404

PA R K C H U N G - H E E

Director Kim escaped, but was captured soon afterward. At trial, he offered five motives for killing Park: “Firstly, to restore free democracy; secondly, to prevent further bloodshed of Korean people; thirdly, to prevent North Korean aggression; fourthly, to completely restore the close relationship with our strong ally the United States, which fell to the worst point since the founding of South Korea and advance our national interest through closer cooperation in defense, diplomacy, and economy; and fifthly, to restore Korea’s honor in the international community by cleansing the bad image of Korea as a dictatorship country.” None sufficed to save him, and he was hanged on May 24, 1980. Four alleged KCIA conspirators—Park Seon-ho, Yoo Seong-ok, Lee Ki-ju, and Kim Tae-won—were hanged the same day. A fifth, Park Heung-ju, had already been shot by a military firing squad on March 6, 1980. Chief Secretary Kim and Jeong Seung-hwa were also condemned as conspirators, then released after Major General Chun Doo-hwan staged a military coup against Park’s successor, President Choi Kyu-hah. Chief investigator Yi Hak-bong confused the issue of conspiracy by ruling that Director Kim’s shooting of Park and Cha was “too careless for a deliberate act and yet too elaborate for an impulsive act.” Park Chung-hee was born at Gumi, in Korea’s North Gyeongsang Province, on September 30, 1917, seven years after Japan annexed his homeland. In April 1932, he enrolled at the Daegu Teacher’s Gymnasium, training as a primary teacher and graduating in March 1937. He taught for three years in Mungyeong, then opted for a military career instead, entering the Manchukuo Imperial Army Academy in April 1940 and graduating in 1942, during the fifth year of the Second Sino-Japanese War. From there, Park moved on to Tokyo’s Army War College, graduating a lieutenant in the 8th Infantry Division of the Manchukuo Army. He saw active duty in the final months of World War II, then shifted to the South Korean Army, but he was expelled in 1948, on charges of joining a communist cell. That charge remained unproven, though Park’s name did appear on the membership roll of the communist Workers Party of South Korea. Nonetheless, despite the onset of the Cold War, Park was readmitted to the military after North Korea invaded the South, in June 1950. He received a year of training in logistics at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, eventually rising to the rank of general under President Syngman Rhee. A popular uprising forced Syngman Rhee out of office on April 26, 1960, succeeded by Prime Minister Chang Myon and his puppet, President Yun Boseon. Neither commanded widespread support, and Park led a military coup against their inefficient government on May 16, 1961, emerging as chairman of a new Supreme Council for National Reconstruction. One month later, he created the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA)—initially led by a relative, Kim Jong-pil—to suppress political opposition. President Yun formally resigned, in favor of Park, on March 24, 1962. Park subsequently permitted civilian rule, under pressure from the Kennedy administration in Washington,

PA R K C H U N G - H E E

and defeated Yun at the polls in December 1963, running as a candidate of the newly created Democratic Republican Party. Ex-president Yun tried again in 1967, as standard bearer for the Civil Rule Party, and was once again defeated. As president, Park was credited for overhauling South Korea’s economy, vastly expanding industry and creating economic development agencies that included an economic planning board, a ministry of finance, and a ministry of trade and industry. In foreign policy, he had become a dedicated anticommunist, committing more than 300,000 troops to aid the United States in the Vietnam War. At home, meanwhile, he ruled as a virtual dictator under South Korea’s state of emergency dating from 1950, frequently curtailing freedom of speech and the press, and the KCIA enjoyed authority to arrest, detain, and torture alleged subversives. The first attempt on Park’s life came from North Korea, when 31 members of Unit 124, a Korean People’s Army commando unit, tried to storm the Blue House on January 21, 1968. Park’s soldiers stopped them a half mile from their target, killing 29 and capturing one, and the last soldier escaped back to North Korea. In response to that raid, Park reportedly created Air Force Unit 684 to kill North Korean Eternal President Kim Il-Sung, but the group was disbanded three years later without trying to carry out its goal. Despite a promise to vacate his office when his second term expired in 1971, thus abiding by the Korean Constitution’s two-term presidential limit, Park promoted an amendment permitting him to seek a third four-year term, then retained the presidency by a narrow margin in that year’s election. Then, on October 17, 1972, he declared a new state of emergency “based on the dangerous realities of the international situation,” suspended the constitution, invoked martial law, dissolved the National Assembly. A new constitution quickly followed, ratified by a rigged plebiscite on November 21. Under the new Yushin (“rejuvenation”) regime, President Park ruled South Korea as a legally established dictator. Economic growth continued under the new government, but dissent also simmered. On August 15, 1974, while delivering a speech at Seoul’s National Theater of Korea, Park came under fire from 22-year-old Mun Segwang, a North Korean sympathizer born in Japan. Mun missed Park, but fatally wounded the president’s wife, Yuk Young-soo, and a teenage choir singer. Park completed his speech while his dying wife was carried offstage. Under KCIA interrogation, Mun allegedly confessed to plotting the attack with aid from Chongryon, the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. He was hanged in Seoul on December 20, 1974. By the eve of his assassination in October 1979, Park faced widespread student demonstrations of the same kind that had forced Syngman Rhee out of office in April 1960. He was also under pressure from a New Democratic Party (NDP), led by Chairman Kim Young-sam, who brooked no compromise

405

406

PAT T E R S O N , A L B E R T L E O N

with Park in efforts to repeal the 1972 constitution. In September 1979, amid mounting protests, a court suspended Kim from the party, and he was expelled from the National Assembly, prompting a walkout by 66 more NDP members on October 5. Riots then erupted in Busan, the topic of discussion at Park’s fatal banquet on October 26. Although KCIA director Kim Jaegyu clearly murdered President Park, debate surrounding his motive persists. Theories range from insanity sparked by progressive liver disease to personal jealousy over the rise of Cha Ji-cheol in Park’s esteem, and a frustrated yearning for national liberty. Based on Kim’s frequent meetings with Robert G. Brewster, station chief of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Seoul, some conspiracy theorists maintain that the CIA promoted Park’s assassination, perhaps opposing his plan to develop nuclear weapons for use against North Korea. In support of that claim, observers note that Kim met with U.S. ambassador William Gleysteen five hours before the shooting. In spite of despotism, many South Koreans still revere Park Chung-hee as an anticommunist hero and his nation’s most efficient ruler of the post–World War II era. In 1999, Time magazine listed Park among the top 10 “Asians of the Century” for rebuilding South Korea in the wake of the Korean War. Further Reading Brazinsky, Gregg. Nation Building in South Korea: Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. Clifford, Mark. Troubled Tiger: Businessmen, Bureaucrats and Generals in South Korea. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993. Kim, Byung-kook, and Ezra Vogel, eds. The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. Lee, Byeong-cheon. Developmental Dictatorship and the Park Chung-hee Era: The Shaping of Modernity in the Republic of Korea. Paramus, NJ: Homa & Sekey Books, 2005. Lee, Chong-sik. Park Chung-Hee: From Poverty to Power. Seoul: Kyung Hee University Press, 2012.

PATTERSON, ALBERT LEON (1894–1954) On May 4, 1954, lawyer Albert Patterson of Phenix City, Alabama, led a field of three candidates seeking the office of attorney general, but his plurality was not large enough to secure the Democratic Party nomination (equivalent to election in those days). A runoff election was scheduled between Patterson and opponent Lee Porter of Gadsden, endorsed by incumbent Attorney General Silas Garrett III. Third-place loser MacDonald Gallion threw his support to Patterson, who then surprised the state’s political machine by scoring a decisive victory on June 10. Even then, facing death threats from organized criminal elements in Phenix City, Patterson told a church group, “I have only

PAT T E R S O N , A L B E R T L E O N

a 100-to-1 chance of ever being sworn in as attorney general.” On the night of June 18, as he left his office, a still-unknown gunman accosted Patterson, forced a pistol into his mouth, and fired three shots, leaving one spent cartridge jammed in the space where his front teeth were dislodged. Patterson died before an ambulance arrived. Albert Patterson was born at New Site, in Alabama’s Tallapoosa County. His year of birth ranges from 1891 to 1897 in various accounts, but his last driver’s license listed the date as January 27, 1894. One of seven siblings born to farming parents, he left home as a teenager, in search of better opportunities, and settled in Fairfield, Texas, where he finished high school while working on farms and in oilfields. In 1916, he joined the Third Texas Infantry, commissioned as a second lieutenant by the time the United States entered World War I. Deployed to France with the 36th Infantry Division in July 1918, Patterson was seriously wounded in battle at Saint-Étienne, receiving the French Croix de Guerre with silver gilt star for valor. Discharged as a first lieutenant, Patterson endured grueling physical therapy and required a cane to walk for the rest of his life. Back in Alabama, Patterson enrolled at Jacksonville State Normal School (now Jacksonville State University), graduating with a teacher’s certificate in 1921. He was immediately hired as a high school principal Clay County, later serving in the same capacity in Coosa County. While discharging those duties, he also graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Alabama, in 1926, then moved on to earn a law degree in one year at Tennessee’s Cumberland School of Law. Patterson opened his first practice in Opelika, Alabama, in 1927, relocated to Alexander City in 1928, and finally settled in Phenix City in 1933. By that time, Alabama journalists had christened Phenix City “the wickedest city in America.” Although that distinction was debatable, the town—located on the Chattahoochee River across from Columbus, Georgia—had a 120-year reputation for wide-open gambling, prostitution, and liquor sales, all banned by law but protected by corrupt city and county law-enforcement agencies. Soldiers from Fort Benning, Georgia, commonly patronized Phenix City’s vice dens, run by a criminal syndicate, and many local residents found conditions increasingly distasteful. So did General George Patton, one-time commander of Fort Benning, who had threatened to raid the city’s dives with tanks and soldiers before he was transferred to a European combat posting in World War II. Patterson launched his political career in 1937, winning election to the Phenix City Board of Education. Three years later, he was named as chairman of the Russell County Draft Board. In 1946, voters chose him to represent them in the state senate, where he served from 1947 to 1951. From that post, he sponsored laws including the Wallace–Cater Act (permitting use of state and municipal bonds to finance industrial plants) and the Trade School Act (establishing trade schools throughout Alabama).

407

408

PAT T E R S O N , A L B E R T L E O N

Defeated in a 1950 bid to become lieutenant governor, Patterson returned to private practice as a member of the Russell Betterment Association (RBA), pledged to eradicate organized crime from Phenix City. Criminals retaliated by torching his office in 1952 and successfully blocked RBA candidates from winning local offices. In the same year, machine politicians tried but failed to keep Patterson from serving as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Encouraged by that small victory, he decided to run for attorney general in 1954. Patterson had predicted that it would take a decade to clean up Phenix City, but public outrage at his murder helped advance that schedule. Governor Gordon Persons declared martial law in the vice-ridden city, sending National Guard officers to relieve city and county lawmen of their duties. Montgomery Circuit Court judge Walter B. Jones led a team of special prosecutors to Russell County, aided by agents from the Alabama Department of Public Safety, dismantling the Phenix City syndicate within seven months. A special grand jury in Birmingham indicted 734 defendants, including local law-enforcement officers, elected officials and entrepreneurs linked to organized crime. Three of those—chief deputy sheriff Albert Fuller, Circuit Solicitor Arch Ferrell, and outgoing attorney general Silas Garrett III—were charged with complicity in Patterson’s murder. Jurors acquitted Ferrell but convicted Fuller, who received a life sentence and was paroled after serving 10 years. Garrett sought refuge in a Texas psychiatric clinic, and although Birmingham’s grand jury slapped him with additional counts of lunacy and vote fraud (for the 1954 primary race), he was never tried on any charges. The pending case against him was dismissed by Attorney General Richmond Flowers in 1963. Bernard Sykes briefly succeeded Garrett as acting attorney general, and John Malcolm Patterson replaced his father on the Democratic ticket in November 1954. Running hard against organized crime, and compiling a sizable sympathy vote, Patterson was elected at a time when Alabama faced challenges to white supremacy from the growing African civil rights movement. An ardent racist allied with the Alabama Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) under Grand Dragon Robert Shelton, John Patterson won election as governor in 1958 and “distinguished” himself by refusal to protect integrated freedom riders in 1961, threatening to fire any state policemen who collaborated with FBI agents in pursuing KKK terrorists. John Patterson also played a key role in preparation for the Central Intelligence Agency’s invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, in April 1961, providing Alabama Air National Guard planes to ferry Cuban exiles to their secret training camps in Nicaragua. Today, a memorial statue of Albert Patterson stands outside the state capital building in Montgomery. In addition to nonfiction books about his assassination, Patterson’s murder inspired a 1956 film noir feature, The Phenix City Story (see sidebar) and a novel by Ace Atkins, Wicked City, published in 2008.

PA U L I O F R U S S I A

THE PHENIX CITY STORY Directed by Phil Karlson for Allied Artists, from a script by Daniel Mainwaring and Crane Wilbure, The Phenix City Story dramatized Albert Patterson’s crusade for justice and his subsequent murder. John McIntire portrayed Patterson, with Richard Kiley cast as son John, whereas the names of other real-life and composite characters were changed for legal reasons. Released on August 14, 1955, the film garnered critical praise. Critic Bruce Eder called it “One of the most violent and realistic crime films of the 1950s. . . . Filmed on location in Alabama with a documentary-like look, the movie captured the ambiance and tenor of its Deep South setting better than almost any other fact-based movie of its era.” Writing for the New York Times, Bosley Crowther concurred, comparing it to On the Waterfront and All the King’s Men. He reserved special praise for the director and screenwriters, who “expose the raw tissue of corruption and terrorism in an American city that is steeped in vice. They catch in slashing, searching glimpses the shrewd chicanery of evil men, the callousness and baseness of their puppets and the dread and silence of local citizens. And . . . they show the sinew and the bone of those who strive for decent things.”

Further Reading “Albert L. Patterson.” Encyclopedia of Alabama. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama .org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1250. Barnes, Margaret. The Tragedy and Triumph of Phenix City, Alabama. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1999. Grady, Alan. When Good Men Do Nothing: The Assassination of Albert Patterson. Tuscaloosa, AL: Fire Ant Books, 2005.

PAUL I OF RUSSIA (1754–1801) In February 1797, Emperor Paul I of Russia launched construction of a new royal palace, St. Michael’s Castle, in the heart of St. Petersburg. The building was consecrated on November 8, 1800—St. Michael’s Day, in the Eastern Orthodox calendar—and Paul moved his family into the palace on February 12, 1801, although finishing work on its interior continued for another month. On the night of March 23, a group of former military officers, dismissed by Paul, invaded the emperor’s bedroom and demanded that he sign a proclamation abdicating the throne in favor of his 23-year-old, Alexander I. When Paul refused, one assailant struck him with a sword or heavy snuff box (reports differ), then

409

410

PAU L I O F R U S S I A

he was strangled and stomped to death. One of the killers, Count Nikolay Alexandrovich Zubov, then proceeded to Alexander’s suite in the palace, informing him of his father’s death and saying, “Time to grow up! Go and rule!” Paul I (né Pavel Petrovich) was born in the St. Petersburg Palace of Empress Elizabeth on October 1, 1754. His parents were listed as Elisabeth’s nephew, Grand Duke Peter (later Emperor Peter III) and Grand Duchess Catherine (later Empress Catherine the Great), though Catherine’s memoirs suggest that Paul’s father was actually her lover, Count Sergei Vasilievich Saltykov. Some biographers of Catherine contend that she despised Paul, and may have attempted to kill him. All accounts agree that she was distant from her son, leaving his upbringing to a governor and tutors. Isolated and sickly after a bout of typhus at age 17, Paul entered into an arranged marriage two years later, but his first wife died during childbirth on April 15, 1776. Less than six months later, on October 7, Catherine arranged his second marriage to Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg. Around that same time, Paul became obsessed with the notion that others were plotting to kill him, once accusing Catherine of mixing ground glass with his food. Catherine generally ignored him, preoccupied with a succession of lovers, and tutor Nikita Ivanovich Panin summarized Paul’s status at court as that of “a bastard who owed his position to his mother’s sufferance.” Paul responded, after his appointment as fleet admiral of the Russian navy and colonel of the Cuirassier regiment at age 18, by criticizing Catherine’s expansionist military policies. Catherine apparently planned to exclude Paul from succession to the throne, favoring his son Alexander, but a stroke claimed her life on November 5, 1796, before she formalized that arrangement. Paul’s first act as emperor was Disgruntled military officers murdered Emperor Paul I of Russia in 1801. (De Agostini/Getty Images) to destroy Catherine’s testament,

PA U L I O F R U S S I A

perhaps in fear that it would cheat him of his role as emperor. Soon afterward, he promulgated the Pauline Laws, establishing strict primogeniture and repealing the decree of Peter the Great, which allowed each Russian monarch to designate his or her successor. He also recalled the army that Catherine had dispatched to invade Persia (now Iran), led by Count Valerian Alexandrovich Zubov, younger brother of Catherine’s then current paramour, Prince Platon Alexandrovich Zubov. Paul’s hatred for the whole Zubov family subsequently played a key role in his death. During the five years of his reign, Paul I was frequently accused (behind his back) of engaging in eccentric behavior. He liberated some of Catherine’s imprisoned critics, notably Tadeusz Kosciuszko ´ and Nikolay Novikov, then confined them to their homes under police surveillance. Loathing denizens of the royal court who had ostracized him in his youth, Paul sought to remake Russian high society in the form of a chivalric order, rewarding the few who met his standard of modern knighthood with land and serfs. His most controversial—and ultimately fatal—program was an effort to reform the army, introducing Prussian uniforms, demanding daily parades around his palace, and ordering soldiers flogged for the slightest infraction. Paul’s dismissal of seven field marshals and 333 generals created a pool of resentful conspirators anxious to see him deposed by late 1800. The plot’s mastermind was Count Nikolay Alexandrovich Zubov, whom Paul rudely snubbed after Catherine’s death, when Zubov sought to congratulate Paul on his accession to the throne. Soon, all of the Zubov brothers were exiled from St. Petersburg, only permitted to return in November 1800. Count Zubov hatched the conspiracy with Count Peter Alekseyevich Pahlen, embittered by his dismissal as governor of St. Petersburg in August 1800. Allegedly financed by Zubov’s sister, Olga Zherebtsova, with funds procured from her lover—Charles Whitworth, 1st Earl Whitworth, Britain’s envoy-extraordinary and minister-plenipotentiary at St. Petersburg under Catherine—the conspirators recruited others. They included Admiral José Pascual Domingo de Ribas y Boyons, who died from a fever on December 14, 1800, before the plot was executed (allegedly poisoned by Count Pahlen to prevent him from babbling conspiratorial details in his delirium); German general Levin August Gottlieb Theophil, dismissed in 1798 over his ties to the Zubov clan; and Prince Vladimir Mikhailovich Yashvil of Georgia. Zubov and Pahlen were present at Paul’s assassination, though direct participation by the others is disputed in some accounts. None of the conspirators were directly punished for killing Paul, but their fates varied under successor Alexander I. Paul’s widow, styled Empress Maria Feodorovna, exiled Count Pahlen to Latvia on April 1, 1801, and he died there in February 1826. Count Zubov remained in St. Petersburg, dying on August 9, 1805. Alexander I promoted Levin Theophil to serve as governor-general of

411

412

P E R C E VA L , S P E N C E R

Lithuania in 1801 and made him a cavalry general the following year. Theophil remained in military service until 1818, then retired, and died at age 81, in December 1826. Conversely, Alexander dismissed Prince Yashvil from his rank of major general, banning him from Moscow and St. Petersburg until Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812. Briefly appointed as a militia officer, he was promptly sacked once more on Alexander’s order and returned to exile, dying at his rural estate on July 20, 1815. Some historians regard Alexander I as an active participant in—or, at least, a tacit supporter of—the conspiracy against his father. In either case, he seemed to live in fear of plots against him, particularly after an abortive attempt to kidnap him while he was en route to the 1818 Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. On December 1, 1825, Alexander died from typhus while touring the port city of Taganrog, in southern Russia’s Rostov Oblast. Despite his interment in St. Petersburg, three months later, rumors persist that Alexander faked his own death and retreated to life as a hermit, perhaps resurfacing as the Russian Orthodox elder Feodor Kuzmich. Kuzmich died on February 1, 1864, when Alexander would have been 86 years old, and was canonized as a saint 120 years later. Further Reading Almedingen, E. M. So Dark a Stream: A Study of the Emperor Paul I of Russia, 1754–1801. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1959. Masson, Charles. Secret Memoirs of the Court of Petersburg: Particularly towards the End of the Reign of Catherine II and the Commencement of That of Paul I. North Stratford, NH: Ayer Company Publishers, 1971. McGrew, Roderick. Paul I of Russia, 1754–1801. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Sablukov, N. A. Reminiscences of the Court and Times of the Emperor, Paul I of Russia, up to the Period of His Death: From the Papers of a Deceased Russian General Officer. London: J. Fraser, 1865.

PERCEVAL, SPENCER (1762–1812) At 5:15 P.M. on May 11, 1812, Prime Minister Spencer Perceval entered England’s House of Commons to attend an official inquiry. As he crossed the lobby, a stranger armed with a pistol accosted Perceval, shooting him in the chest at point-blank range. Witnesses to the shooting later disagreed as to whether his last words were “Murder!” or “Oh my God!” In either case, Perceval quickly lapsed into unconsciousness and died before a physician arrived, moments later. The gunman, who made no attempt to flee, identified himself as 43-year-old John Bellingham, a merchant who had served four years in Russian debtor’s prison and, since his return to England in 1809, had filed repeated claims against the British government for compensation, all denied. At trial, Judge James Mansfield dismissed purported evidence of Bellingham’s insanity

P E R C E VA L , S P E N C E R

and condemned him to die. Bellingham was hanged before a large crowd in London, on May 18, 1812. The seventh son of an Irish earl, Spencer Perceval was born in London on November 1, 1762. His father—John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont—served for 18 years in the Irish House of Commons, and in 1748 was named Lord of the Bedchamber for Frederick, Prince of Wales. John died in December 1770, and Spencer spent the next five years at Harrow School, run by the Anglican Church, before matriculating to Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated in 1782. Choosing the Prime Minister Spencer Perceval, shot in Britain’s law as his profession, he next House of Commons. (Getty Images) studied at Lincoln’s Inn and was called to the London bar in 1786, assigned to the Midland Circuit. When his private practice flagged, family connections helped him to secure various positions including deputy recorder of Northampton and commissioner of bankrupts (1790), surveyor of the maltings and clerk of the irons in the Mint (1791), and counsel to the Board of Admiralty (1794). Between those postings, he also served as junior prosecution counsel in the 1792 libel trial of Thomas Paine (convicted in absentia) and the 1794 trial of politician John Horne Tooke for high treason (acquitted). Spencer’s career in politics began with a series of pamphlets condemning sedition and calling for the impeachment of Warren Hastings, Britain’s governorgeneral of India. Though published anonymously, the pamphlets were traced back to Spencer by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger in 1795, prompting Pitt to offer Spencer a posting as chief secretary for Ireland. Spencer declined on economic grounds, but subsequently accepted a job as king’s counsel, for £1,000 a year, in 1796. In May of that same year, he won election to a seat in the House of Commons recently vacated by one of his cousins, representing Northampton. Voters from that district reelected him, without opposition, 1802, 1806, and 1807, serving until his death. Because members of parliament received no salary, Perceval continued his legal practice, including service as senior Crown counsel at the 1797 sedition

413

414

P E R C E VA L , S P E N C E R

trial of Irish journalist John Binns. Although acquitted in that case, Binns spent two years in prison for supporting the Society of United Irishmen, and emigrated to the United States upon release from custody. Known as a dynamic speaker in the House of Commons, Perceval was appointed to serve as solicitor general in 1801 and as attorney general from 1802 through 1805, notably prosecuting seven revolutionaries led by Colonel Edward Despard for conspiring to assassinate King George III. All were convicted, sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, commuted to simple hanging and beheading before their execution in February 1803. On a less draconian note, Perceval relaxed some restrictions on British trade unions and improved conditions for convicts deported to Australia. Perceval resigned as attorney general in January 1806, unwilling to serve under Prime Minister William Grenville, and became the opposition leader in the House of Commons. Over the next 12 months, he successfully defended Princess Caroline of Brunswick against charges of bearing an illegitimate child (found to be adopted). Grenville’s government fell in March 1807, in a dispute with George III over Catholic emancipation, whereupon Perceval emerged as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons under successor William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland. Perceval’s preference had been appointment as home secretary—given instead to Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool—but he accepted the Exchequer posting when the Duchy of Lancaster offered to supplement his salary, making it equal to the home secretary’s. Failing health and a public duel between two of his cabinet ministers drove Prime Minister Cavendish-Bentinck from office on October 4, 1809, and he died three weeks later, succeeded by Perceval. Perceval’s administration got off to a rocky start, with a parliamentary investigation in January 1810 of a bungled military attempt to seize Antwerp, in Belgium. Next came the mental collapse of George III, prompting Perceval to promulgate the Regency Act 1811, pushed through parliament despite opposition to some of its terms from the Prince of Wales. Many expected the prince to dismiss Perceval while he served as regent, but they were surprised when Perceval kept both his post and his cabinet. Meanwhile, Perceval’s opponents in parliament launched an investigation of various Orders in Council that had strained British relations with the United States. On the day of his assassination, Perceval was on his way to hearings on that matter—which, in fact, would spark the War of 1812 five weeks later. At his death, Perceval left his widow Jane and 12 children, the youngest three years old, with only £106 5s 1d in the bank. Before the end of May, parliament voted £50,000 for his children, plus annuities for his widow and eldest son. Jane Perceval remarried in 1815, and was widowed once more in 1821. Nicholas Vansittart, 1st Baron Bexley, succeeded Perceval as prime minister, serving

PETER III OF RUSSIA

until 1823. Henry Bellingham, a distant relative of Preceval’s killer, also served in parliament from 1983 to 1997. Perceval remains today the only British prime minister to die by assassination. Further Reading Hanrahan, David. The Assassination of the Prime Minister: John Bellingham and the Murder of Spencer Perceval. Stroud, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom: Sutton Publishing, 2008. Gray, Denis. Spencer Perceval: The Evangelical Prime Minister, 1762–1812. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1963. Linklater, Andro. Why Spencer Perceval Had To Die: The Assassination of a British Prime Minister. New York: Walker & Company, 2012. Treherne, Philip. The Right Honourable Spencer Perceval. Charleston, SC: BiblioLife, 2009. Williams, Charles. The Life and Administration of the Right Hon. Spencer Perceval: Including . . . a Detail of His Assassination, &c. &c. . . . . Dublin: Ulan Press, 2011.

PETER III OF RUSSIA (1728–1762) On June 28, 1762, royal guards staged a coup d’état against Emperor Peter III in Oranienbaum, Russia, placing him under arrest and forcing him to abdicate in favor of his wife, Empress Catherin II—also known as Catherine the Great. The coup’s leader, Count Alexei Grigoryevich Orlov—a brother of Catherine’s lover, Count Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov—subsequently transported Peter to Ropsha Palace, 30 miles southwest of St. Petersburg, originally built and occupied by Prince Fyodor Romodanovsky, the chief of Tsar Peter the Great’s notorious secret police. There, on July 17, Peter III died under circumstances still unclear, widely presumed to be assassination at the hands of Alexei Orlov or his guards. Peter was born at Kiel, in the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp (part of Germany, then ruled by Denmark), on February 21, 1728. His father, Duke Charles Frederick, was a nephew of Sweden’s King Charles XII, and his mother was a daughter of Russia’s emperor Peter I and Empress Catherine I. Peter lost his mother three months after he was born, and his father died in June 1739, whereupon Peter became Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, styled Charles Peter Ulrich, at age 11. When his maternal aunt Elizabeth ascended to the Russian throne in December 1741, she summoned Peter from Germany and declared him her heir presumptive in autumn 1742. Soon afterward, and unaware of that decision, Sweden’s parliament named Peter as the heir presumptive to that nation’s throne by Sweden’s parliament, a vote rescinded in November. In August 1745, Empress Elizabeth arranged Peter’s marriage to a second cousin, Sophia Augusta Frederica, who converted to Russian Orthodoxy and became Ekaterina Alexeievna, later Empress Catherine the Great. Their union

415

416

PETER III OF RUSSIA

was unhappy from the start, with both parties taking numerous lovers, but it still apparently produced two children, future Emperor Paul I and daughter Anna Petrovna (who died before her second birthday). We say “apparently,” because Catherine later intimated that the marriage was never consummated, naming Paul’s father as Count Sergei Vasilievich Saltykov. Anna was allegedly sired by future King Stanisław II of Poland, and two subsequent children— Elizabeth Alexandrovna Alexeeva and Aleksey Grigorievich Bobrinsky—were fathered by Grigory Orlov. That strange marital arrangement may have contributed to Peter’s heavy drinking and reputed mental instability. Catherine’s memoirs reviled him as “good-for-nothing,” an “idiot,” and a “drunkard from Holstein,” a view accepted by the Encyclopædia Britannica’s 11th edition in 1910–1911, saying of Peter that “Nature had made him mean, the smallpox had made him hideous, and his degraded habits made him loathsome.” German historian Elena Palmer strongly disagrees, portraying Peter as a courageous liberal—at least by Russian standards—who expanded religious freedom, abolished the country’s secret police (revived upon Catherine’s accession), criminalized the killing of serfs by landowners, required education for the children of aristocrats (with proof submitted to the senate), established technical schools for middle- and lower-class children, and exempted nobles from obligatory state and military service established under Peter the Great. The latter move alone prompted parliament to propose erecting a solid-gold stature of Peter III, but he demurred with the observation that Russia had better uses for its gold. Peter’s greatest sin, in Russian eyes, may finally have been an enduring attachment to his German roots in Holstein and his habit of surrounding himself with friends from that region. Upon his ascension to the throne in January 1762, Peter instantly withdrew Russian troops from the Seven Years’ War and concluded a separate peace with Frederick II of Prussia, hailed in Germany as the “Miracle of the House of Brandenburg.” Worse yet, in the eyes of some European rulers, Peter offered 12,000 soldiers to Frederick for his ongoing battle with Austria, permitting Prussia to capture Silesia and negotiate the final Treaty of Hubertusburg in February 1763. Meanwhile, Peter planned a new war against Denmark, massing 40,000 troops at Pomerania in June 1762, but that campaign was aborted by his overthrow at the end of that month. Historians still debate Catherine’s role in Peter’s forced abdication and subsequent death. Certainly, the Orlov brothers prospered under her reign, and Grigory Orlov continued sharing her bed. Grigory also received the alleged murder site, Ropsha Palace, as a gift from Catherine, conditional upon her order that its name was “not to be mentioned again.” (Orlov soon ceded the property to Admiral Ivan Chernyshyov, who in turn sold it for 12,000 roubles

PETER III OF RUSSIA

to an Armenian jeweler, Ivan Lazarev. Alexei Orlov was given command of a Mediterranean expedition during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, destroying the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Chesma (July 5–7, 1770). From that triumph, Alexi proceeded to instigate the Orlov Revolt in the Turkish-held Peloponnese, a precursor to the 1821 Greek War of Independence. Finally, in Tuscany, Alexei kidnapped Yelizaveta Alekseyevna—a pretender to the Russian throne as “Princess Tarakanoff,” alleged daughter of Empress Elizabeth and Count Alexey Razumovsky—transporting her to Russia, where she was imprisoned and died from tuberculosis in December 1775. Meanwhile, Grigory Orlov had been replaced in Catherine’s estimation and in her bedroom by Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin-Tavricheski. Despite an attempt to rekindle their flame with a gift of the 189.62-carat Orlov Diamond, he was shunned at court and vanished into self-imposed exile, returning to Russia a few months before his death in 1783. Brother Alexei lost his grip on power with Catherine’s death in November 1796. Her son and successor, Paul I, ordered his father exhumed and reburied with great ceremony, compelling Alexei to walk before the casket bearing the Great Imperial Crown. Alexei left Russia soon thereafter, but returned with the advent of Tsar Alexander I in March 1801, commanding a militia regiment during the War of the Fourth Coalition (1806–1807). Alexei died in Moscow on January 5, 1808, leaving an estate valued at 5 million roubles, with 30,000 serfs. A curious footnote to Peter’s story, as with Tsar Alexander I, is the persistent rumor that he did not die in 1762. Five individuals claiming to be the “late” emperor subsequently led peasant revolts around Russia, the most famous being Cossack peasant Yemelyan Pugachev in 1774. Catherine the Great crushed all those uprisings, yet the legend persists. An extension of that myth credits Peter III, in spirit, with breaking the Nazi siege of Leningrad in January 1944. In cinematic portrayals of Catherine’s reign, Peter III has been portrayed by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (The Rise of Catherine the Great, 1934), by Sam Jaffe (The Scarlet Empress, 1934), and by Reece Dinsdale (in the 1991 television miniseries Young Catherine). See also: Paul I of Russia (1754–1801).

Further Reading Bain, Robert. Peter III, Emperor of Russia: The Story of a Crisis and a Crime. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1902. Julicher, Peter. Renegades, Rebels and Rogues under the Tsars. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003. Leonard, Carol. Reform and Regicide: The Reign of Peter III of Russia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. Palmer, Elena. Peter III: Der Prinz von Holstein. Erfurt, Germany: Sutton Verlag, 2005.

417

418

P E T L I U R A , S Y M O N VA S Y LY O V Y C H

PETLIURA, SYMON VASYLYOVYCH (1879–1926) On the afternoon of May 25, 1926, former Ukrainian president Symon Petliura was walking through the Latin Quarter of Paris, France, when a stranger approached him on rue Racine, near Boulevard Saint-Michel. According to witnesses, the man addressed Petliura in Ukrainian, asking his name, whereupon Petliura raised his cane without replying. The man—Sholem-Shmuel Schwarzbard, a Ukrainian poet of Jewish descent—then drew a pistol and shot Petliura seven times, killing him instantly. His pistol jammed on the eighth shot, as a policeman arrived on the scene. At trial in October 1927, Schwarzbard admitted killing Petliura for his role in anti-Semitic pogroms that had claimed some 50,000 lives, including 15 members of Schwarzbard’s immediate family. Prosecutors countered that defense by arguing that Petliura was innocent of involvement in the pogroms, and that Schwarzbard was an agent of the Soviet Union’s Joint State Political Directorate. Jurors acquitted Schwarzbard of all charges on October 26. He left France for Palestine, in 1928, then moved on to South Africa in 1937 and died there the following year. Symon Petliura was born in a suburb of Poltava, Ukraine—then called Little Russia—on May 10, 1879, a descendant of Cossacks who enjoyed privileged status in the Russian Empire with regard to education, taxes, and ownership of land. He enrolled at Poltava’s Russian Orthodox Seminary in 1895, planning to become a priest, but was expelled in 1901 after administrators discovered his membership in the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party (RUP), founded the previous year. Petliura then relocated to Yekaterinodar (now Krasnodar), where he taught school for two years, then worked as an archivist for the Kuban Cossack Host. Agents of the Russian secret police jailed him in December 1903, for organizing a local RUP chapter and publishing anti-tsarist literature, then released him in March 1904 on condition that he leave Little Russia and settle in Lviv, western Ukraine, ruled at that time by the AustroHungarian Empire. In Lviv, calling himself “Sviatoslav Tagon,” Petliura edited and wrote for various Ukrainian periodicals and journals, including publications of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. Early in 1905, an amnesty permitted his return to Russia and resumption of his true identity as publisher of the democratic socialist magazine Vil’na Ukrayina (Free Ukraine) in St. Petersburg. Tsarist censors closed that publication’s office in July 1905, whereupon Petliura moved to Kiev, first working as a staff writer for the magazine Rada (Council), then editing the magazine Slovo (Word) and Ukrayina (Ukraine). Censors shut down those magazines in 1909, prompting Petliura to seek employment as an accountant in Moscow. With publications in Ukrainian banned by law, he returned to journalism as editor of the Russian-language journal Ukrainskaya zhizn’ (Ukrainian Life) from 1912 to May 1917.

P E T L I U R A , S Y M O N VA S Y LY O V Y C H

That same month, Petliura attended the first All-Ukrainian Army Congress in Kiev, where he was elected to lead the Ukrainian General Army Committee. The creation of Ukraine’s first Central Rada (Council) found Petliura named to serve as First Secretary for military matters, but he soon quarreled with Volodymyr Vynnychenko, first chairman of Ukraine’s ruling Directorate, and left his government post to lead the rival Haydamatskyj Kish paramilitary movement based in Kharkiv. A see-saw struggle for control ensued, climaxed with Petliura’s arrest on April 28, 1918. He spent four months in custody at Bila Tserkva, but emerged to continue his opposition against the Vynnychenko regime, finally capturing Kiev and driving Vynnychenko into exile in February 1919. Petliura then assumed command of the Directorate, fielding troops against both Bolshevik and anticommunist White Guard forces primacy in Ukraine. The ensuing Ukrainian–Soviet War resulted in defeat of the White Guard’s army in autumn 1919, but the more numerous “Red” Bolsheviks finally prevailed, forcing Petliura to seek refuge in Poland on December 5, 1919. Recognized there as head of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Petliura forged an alliance with Poland, launching an attack on Kiev with mixed forces, on May 7, 1920. Bolsheviks repulsed that movement, leaving Petliura to declare himself the leader of a government in exile, initially based in Tarnów, then Warsaw. After Bolshevik forces secured control of Russia and proclaimed the Soviet Union, in December 1922, Petliura embarked upon a European odyssey, living successively in Budapest, Vienna, Geneva, and finally settling in Paris by 1924, where he established the Ukrainian language newspaper Tryzub (Trident). Although separated from his homeland, Petliura could not escape the onus of events that had occurred there during World War I and afterward. Specifically, between 1918 and 1921, a total of 1,236 violent attacks on Jews had been recorded in 524 towns throughout Ukraine, with 493 of those carried out by Petliura’s soldiers. Various estimates of the Jewish death toll ranged from 35,000 to 60,000. This, despite broad expansion of civil rights for Jews under Petliura’s government, with a May 1919 declaration from Jewish cabinet minister Arnold Margolin that his coreligionists enjoyed more freedom in Ukraine than in any other European state. Some latter-day historians suggest that Petliura permitted local military commanders to pursue antiSemitic campaigns as a means of broadening their peasant base, whereas others assert that he simply lost control of army units in the hinterlands. On April 12, 1922, the communist All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee publicly named Petliura as one of seven “fierce perpetrators against the liberty of the Ukrainian toiling people, irreconcilable enemies of workers and peasants of Ukraine.” That move, as some historians today suggest, may have arisen chiefly from Moscow’s fear of Petliura’s influence among ardent Ukrainian nationalists.

419

420

P H I L I P O F S WA B I A

Peter Deriabin, a Russian KGB agent who defected to the United States in 1953, testified before Congress six years later that Petliura’s assassination was a Soviet-sponsored event. Triggerman Schwartzbard allegedly received his orders from Christian Rakovsky, a former chairman of the Soviet Ukrainian government, then Soviet ambassador to France. Logistical support, it was said, came from Russian intelligence agent Mikhail Volodin. Far from defusing Ukrainian nationalism, however, news of Petliura’s murder sparked spontaneous rebellions in more than a dozen cities across Ukraine. Petliura’s two sisters, both Russian Orthodox nuns who remained in Ukraine, were arrested and executed by the Soviet secret police in 1928. Although historians continue to debate Petliura’s role in Ukrainian pogroms, his reputation was substantially rehabilitated inside Ukraine following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. Several cities, including Kiev, now display monuments erected in his honor, and a 12-volume edition of his writings was released in 2006, on the 80th anniversary of his murder. In June 2009, Kiev’s city council renamed Komintern’s Street as Symon Petliura Street, in honor of his 130th birthday. Further Reading Friedman, Saul. Pogromchik: The Assassination of Simon Petliura. New York: Hart Publishing, 1976. Gerwath, Robert, and John Horne. War in Peace: Paramilitary Violence in Europe after the Great War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Hunczak, Taras. Symon Petliura and the Jews: A Reappraisal. Barrington, IL: Ukrainian Historical Association, 1985. Klier, John, and Shlomo Lamroza, eds. Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Marples, David. Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2008.

PHILIP OF SWABIA (1177–1208) On June 21, 1208, Count Otto VIII of Wittelsbach murdered German king Philip of Swabia at Bamberg, in Bavaria. The slaying occurred after Duke Henry I the Bearded of Silesia terminated his young daughter’s betrothal to Otto, apparently after hearing tales of Otto’s cruel and erratic behavior. Although King Philip played no part in that event, he had previously rejected Otto’s offer of marriage to his own daughter, Beatrice, at a very young age (some reports say five years old). Otto’s disordered mind apparently connected the events, prompting him to stab Philip in the throat. Otto escaped after the regicide, but was finally run to ground in Kelheim, on March 7, 1209. Arresting officers summarily beheaded him and tossed his head into the Danube River. Reports claim that his headless corpse was kept for a time in a barrel, later taken and burned by monks from a local monastery.

P H I L I P O F S WA B I A

Philip was born in August 1177, in Swabia, the former German state of Württemberg (now western Bavaria). He was the fifth and youngest son of Holy Roman emperor Frederick I, last in line to inherit the throne. He joined the Catholic clergy, first as provost of Aachen in North Rhine-Westphalia, then advanced to serve as bishop of Würzburg at the young age of 14. Four years later, shifting from the church to secular pursuits, he became the Duke of Tuscany in 1195. The death of older brother Conrad II, in August 1196, permitted Philip King Philip of Swabia, killed by a deranged assasto advance once more, named sin in 1208. (Bettmann/Corbis) to replace Conrad as Duke of Swabia. In May 1197, Philip married Irene Angelina, the dowager queen of Sicily (widow of King Roger III) and daughter of late Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelos. Their union produced four daughters: Beatrice, later Holy Roman Empress, in 1198 Kunigunde, later queen of Bohemia, in 1200; Maria, later Duchess of Brabant and Lothier, in 1201; and Elisabeth, later queen of Castille and León, in 1203. Upon the death of Frederick I in June 1190, Philip’s older brother Henry— already king of the Romans since August 1169—ascended to the throne as Holy Roman emperor Henry VI. Four years later, with the birth of Henry’s son Frederick (later Holy Roman emperor Frederick II), Henry entrusted Philip with primary care of the boy, in the event of his (Henry’s) untimely death. And in fact, Henry died from malaria (some say poison) on September 28, 1197, while leading troops to suppress a rebellion in southern Sicily. Philip went to young Frederick’s aid and saw him coroneted as king of Sicily before his fourth birthday, on September 3, 1198, but German hostility to rule by a childking spread swiftly. Powerful voices at court persuaded Philip—if he needed persuasion—to accept election as king of Germany on March 8, 1198, crowned at Mainz on September of that year. Philip’s accession to the throne was not unopposed. Hostile princes led by Adolf of Altena, archbishop of Cologne, chose their own king, Otto IV of Brunswick, Duke of Saxony and son of Henry the Lion, in July 1198. Civil war ensued, widening as Philip drew support from King Philip II Augustus of

421

422

PHILIP II OF M ACEDON

France, and England’s King Richard I and successor King John backed Otto. Pope Innocent III threw the Vatican’s influence behind Otto, exerting influence to retire France from the struggle in March 1201. More setbacks followed for Philip, as King Ottokar I of Bohemia joined the fight on Otto’s side, but the tide turned in his favor during 1204, prompting Adolf of Altena to defect and join him, soon followed by Henry I, Duke of Brabant. On January 6, 1205, Philip was crowned anew at Aachen, this time by former foe Adolf of Altena. Pope Innocent III retaliated by excommunicating Adolf in July 1205, and the war continued for another two years, until Philip captured Cologne in 1207. The final treaty was signed in March 1208, when Pope Innocent agreed to perform a marriage ceremony between Otto IV of Brunswick and Philip’s daughter Beatrice. Queen Irene Angelina was pregnant with a fifth daughter at the time of Philip’s assassination. She gave birth to the girl, named Beatrice Postuma, on August 27, 1208, but both mother and child died soon afterwards. Otto IV succeeded his former rival, then father-in-law, as king of the Germans in October 1209, but was excommunicated by Innocent III in November 1210 and ceded his throne to Philip’s nephew, Frederick II, in December 1212. Further Reading Arnold, Benjamin. Medieval Germany, 500–1300: A Political Interpretation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997. Fuhrmann, Horst. Germany in the High Middle Ages: c.1050–1200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Haverkamp, Alfred. Medieval Germany 1056–1273. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Jeep, John, ed. Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, 2001. Lewis, Brenda. A Dark History: The Kings and Queens of Europe from Medieval Tyrants to Mad Monarchs. New York: Metro Books, 2008. Wiler, Björn, and Simon Maclean, eds. Representations of Power in Medieval Germany: 800–1500. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2006.

PHILIP II OF MACEDON (359 BCE–336 BCE) In October 336 BCE, King Philip II of Macedon prepared to celebrate the marriage of Cleopatra—his 21-year-old daughter by fourth wife, Olympias—to Cleopatra’s uncle, King Alexander I of Epirus. The ceremony was held in Aigai (now Vergina), then capital of Macedon on the northeastern Greek peninsula. After the ceremony, as Philip entered the town’s theater to greet assembled celebrants, he was attacked and fatally stabbed by one of his seven personal bodyguards, Pausanias of Orestis. While attempting to flee, Pausanias reportedly tripped on a vine and was overtaken by three other

PHILIP II OF M ACEDON

guards, one of whom skewered him with a spear. Two alleged conspirators—brothers Arrhabaeus and Heromenes, sons of exiled military commander Aeropus of Lyncestis—were subsequently executed by Philip’s son, Alexander the Great. Philip was born at Pella, in Macedon, sometime during 382 BCE. The youngest son of King Amyntas III and Queen Eurydice I, Philip was taken hostage by Theban troops at age 14 and remained in captivity for the better part of three years, until 365 BCE. Captivity was someKing Philip II of Macedon, stabbed to death by thing less than arduous, howone of his own bodyguards in 336 BCE. (Ken Welsh/ ever, as he received diplomatic Design Pics/Corbis) and military training from General Epaminondas, became the homosexual lover (erômenos) of another general, Pelopidas, and lived for a time with yet another general, Pammenes of Thebes. Pammenes, in turn, was an officer of the Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite military force organized by Gorgidas in 378 BCE, comprising 150 pairs of gay lovers. Back in Macedon by early 364 BCE, Philip found the Macedonian kingdom in flux. With his father’s death in 370 BCE, son Alexander II had claimed the throne, but he had died in 369, succeeded by brother Perdiccas III. Perdiccas died in battle with Illyrian opponents in 359, succeeded by six-year-old son Amyntas IV, whom Philip served as regent. Philip was not content to see his nephew rule, however, and before year’s end he had usurped the throne, installing himself as the monarch. His kingdom was then under siege—by the Illyrians who had killed his brother; by Paeonian and Thracian raiders on its eastern boundary; by Athenian invaders at Methoni, on the Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean Sea; and from within by soldiers under Argeus, a contestant for the throne. Philip bought off the Paeonians and Thracians with tribute, annihilated a force of 3,000 Athenian soldiers in 359 BCE, and struck against the Illyrians a year later, killing King Bardyllis and at least 4,000 of his soldiers (some accounts say 7,000). Newly allied with the Chalkidian League of Olynthus by 356 BCE, Philip used his enhanced forces to conquer Potidaea and Crenides, changing the latter city’s name to Philippi. Philip laid siege to Methone in 355 and captured it the following year, after losing his right eye in battle.

423

424

PHILIP II OF M ACEDON

Undeterred by that handicap, in 353 Philip joined in the Third Sacred War, ongoing for the past three years between Phocis and the Amphictyonic League, an association of Greek tribes dominated by Thebes. At the Battle of Crocus Field, Philip’s army killed 6,000 Phocians and captured 3,000 more, who were subsequently executed by drowning. Four years later, in 349, Philip turned against the Chalkidian League, laying siege to Olynthus, which he razed to the ground (with other Chalkidian settlements) in 348 BCE. Flush with victory, in 347 he invaded the Odrysian kingdom (spanning northern Greece and present-day Bulgaria), forcing the submission of Princes Amadocus II and Cersobleptes. In 345, while at war with King Pluratus of the Illyrian Ardiaei tribe, Philip suffered another serious wound, this time in his left leg. Upon recovering from that injury, Philip attacked the Scythians in 342 BCE, capturing the city of Eumolpia and naming it Philippopolis (now Plovdiv, Bulgaria). In 340, he laid siege to Perinthus, followed by another siege at Bysantium in 339, but both campaigns failed. Philip recouped some of his damaged reputation in 338, first defeating a combination of Athenians and Thebans in the Battle of Chaeronea, then destroying Amfissa because its Phocian inhabitants had cultivated territory claimed by Delphi. In 337, Philip founded and led the League of Corinth—also known as the Hellenic League—under which all Greek states except Sparta agreed to abstain from battling one another. Thus pacified, Greece turned its eyes upon the Persian Empire, choosing Philip to lead the invasion in 336, but his assassination left completion of that task to his son, Alexander the Great. The only contemporary account of Philip’s murder comes from Aristotle, claiming that the assassin, Pausanias, nursed a grudge over insults from friends of Attalus, Philip’s father-in-law. Historian Diodorus Siculus, writing some 280 years after the event, elaborated on that tale and added a homosexual twist. According to Diodorus, Philip and Pausanias were lovers until Philip began an affair with a male friend of Attalus, coincidentally also named Pausanias. The jilted Pausanias insulted his new rival publically, whereupon Philip’s new paramour committed suicide. Attalus then allegedly retaliated against the first Pausanias by getting him drunk and arranging for him to be raped. Philip reportedly declined pleas from the violated man to punish Attalus, though he did promote Pausanias to serve as a royal bodyguard—which proved to be a fatal mistake. Roman historian Marcus Junianus Justinus, writing in the third century CE, was the first to claim that Alexander and his mother had advance knowledge of Philip’s assassination and may have instigated it. Olympias was suspect, in particular, based on her unhappy marriage to the king. Alexander crucified the corpse of Pausanias, but Olympias had the assassin buried in a tumulus as soon as her son left Macedon, ordering yearly animal sacrifices in his memory

PHOENIX PROGRAM

thereafter. Before year’s end, Alexander executed Attalus, and Olympias murdered a nephew of Attalus whom Attalus preferred over Alexander as Philip’s successor. Further Reading Ashley, James. The Macedonian Empire: The Era of Warfare Under Philip II and Alexander the Great, 359–323 BCE. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004. Bradford, Alfred. Philip II of Macedon: A Life from the Ancient Sources. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992. Carney, Elizabeth, and Daniel Ogden, eds. Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and Son, Lives and Afterlives. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Gabriel, Richard. Philip II of Macedonia: Greater than Alexander. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2010. Worthington, Ian. Philip II of Macedonia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.

PHOENIX PROGRAM (1965–1972) Persistent—and perhaps deliberate—confusion surrounds the birth of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Phoenix Program in South Vietnam. Created to “neutralize” suspected Viet Cong (VC) operatives, informants, and supporters, the program assassinated thousands of Vietnamese, while imprisoning and often torturing thousands more. Some sources claim that the operation was launched in 1954, as soon as Vietnam was “temporarily” divided along the 17th parallel by the Geneva Accords, pending reunification through a general election in July 1956. That version says that CIA agents organized secret police units in South Vietnam, operating as virtual death squads. Although that may be true, it now appears that the VC insurgency was not organized until December 1956, with its first campaign beginning in April 1957. Other sources maintain that the Phoenix Program debuted in 1965, with the beginning of America’s ground war in Vietnam. Its primary components were “provincial reconnaissance units” (PRUs) that carried out assassinations and abductions, with surviving captives delivered to regional interrogation centers (RICs). South Vietnamese law permitted detention of VC suspects pending trial, with a two-year sentence upon conviction of membership in a communist organization, renewable at the government’s pleasure up to six years total. While incarcerated, prisoners were routinely subjected to torture including “Rape, gang rape, rape using eels, snakes, or hard objects, and rape followed by murder; electric shock (‘the Bell Telephone Hour’) rendered by attaching wires to the genitals or other sensitive parts of the body, like the tongue; the ‘water treatment’; the ‘airplane’ in which the prisoner’s arms were tied behind the back, and the rope looped over a hook on the ceiling, suspending the prisoner in midair, after which he or she was beaten; beatings with rubber hoses and whips; the use of police dogs to maul prisoners” (McCoy, p. 63).

425

426

PHOENIX PROGR AM

Australian military intelligence officer Milton Osborne, first dispatched to Southeast Asia during 1959, described other acts of CIA-sponsored torture, including “The use of the insertion of the 6-inch dowel into the canal of one of my detainee’s ears, and the tapping through the brain until dead. The starvation to death (in a cage), of a Vietnamese woman who was suspected of being part of the local political education cadre in one of the local villages. . . . The use of electronic gear such as sealed telephones attached to . . . both the women’s vaginas and men’s testicles [to] shock them into submission” (Allen and Pilger, p. 164). Such activities were justified in terms of collecting intelligence—specifically, the identity of VC members or supporters—which could then be used to draw up lists of future Phoenix targets. Lieutenant Vincent Okamoto, assigned to the Phoenix Program in 1968, described that process in action. The problem was, how do you find the people on the blacklist? It’s not like you had their address and telephone number. The normal procedure would be to go into a village and just grab someone and say, “Where’s Nguyen so-and-so?” Half the time the people were so afraid they would not say anything. Then a Phoenix team would take the informant, put a sandbag over his head, poke out two holes so he could see, put common wire around his neck like a long leash, and walk him through the village and say, “When we go by Nguyen’s house scratch your head.” Then that night Phoenix would come back, knock on the door, and say, “April Fool, motherfucker.” Whoever answered the door would get wasted. As far as they were concerned whoever answered was a Communist, including family members. Sometimes they’d come back to camp with ears to prove that they killed people. (Appy, p. 361)

In 1967, authority for Phoenix operations fell under a new umbrella organization called Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), which included creation and maintenance of a 500,000-member peasant militia to fight the VC in conjunction with regular U.S. and South Vietnamese military forces. Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Herbert, fated to become the war’s most decorated U.S. soldier, found the Phoenix Program operating at high gear when he reached Saigon in 1968. Five years later, in his autobiography Soldier, Herbert recalled that in his first meeting with CIA agents, “They wanted me to take charge of execution teams that wiped out entire families and tried to make it look as though the VC themselves had done the killing.” Although the VC themselves certainly perpetrated numerous atrocities, that revelation raises doubts concerning some allegations made against them. The Tet Offensive of 1968 convinced CIA and U.S. Army leaders that the Phoenix Program should be broadened in a bid to decimate the VC infrastructure (VCI in military shorthand). Directive 381–41, issued by the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), specified that Phoenix operators

PIZARRO GONZÁLEZ, FRANCISCO

would attack communist rebels with a “rifle shot rather than a shotgun approach to target key political leaders, command/control elements and activists in the VCI.” Although statistics concerning covert operations are notoriously unreliable, one official estimate cites 81,740 suspected VC members and supporters “neutralized” by Phoenix teams, of whom 26,369 were assassinated. The latter figure, presumably, does not include detainees killed in custody or others who simply “disappeared.” In addition to murdering Vietnamese nationals, some accounts maintain that Phoenix agents also killed U.S. and South Vietnamese military personnel who were deemed to be “security risks”—a theme fictionalized in the 1979 motion picture Apocalypse Now. Most accounts claim the Phoenix Program was disbanded in 1972, due in large part to negative publicity generated by returning veterans such as former army counterintelligence agent Ed Murphy, who exposed the program publicly in April 1970, and Barton Osborn, whose 1971 congressional testimony described the Phoenix campaign as a “sterile depersonalized murder program.” In fact, however, it appears that the program—or something very similar— continued in South Vietnam under the code name “F-6,” following the 1972 Easter Offensive, and may have endured until the on April 30, 1975. Further Reading Allen, Joe, and John Pilger. Vietnam: The (Last) War the U.S. Lost. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2008. Andradé, Dale. Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990. Appy, Christian. Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides. New York: Penguin Books, 2003. Herbert, Anthony. Soldier. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973. Herrington, Stuart. Silence Was a Weapon. New York: Presidio Press, 1982. McCoy, Alfred. A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. New York: Macmillan, 2006. Moyar, Mark. Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The CIA’s Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet Cong. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. Valentine, Douglas. The Phoenix Program. New York: William Morrow, 1990.

PIZARRO GONZÁLEZ, FRANCISCO (1471–1541) On June 26, 1541, a group of heavily armed Spaniards led by Diego de Almagro II, stormed the palace occupied by Francisco Pizarro González, governor of New Castille, in Lima, Peru. Almagro held a deadly grudge against Pizarro for executing Almagro’s father—a one-time ally turned military rival— in July 1538. During the palace raid, most of Pizarro’s houseguests escaped, but a handful, including his half-brother Alcántara, fought and died while the

427

428

PIZARRO GONZÁLEZ, FR ANCISCO

70-year-old Pizarro struggled into his armor. Once confronted by his enemies, Pizarro reportedly killed two invaders, then was fatally stabbed when his sword became lodged in a third opponent’s torso. Initially buried in the courtyard of Lima’s cathedral, Pizarro was later exhumed and beheaded, his skull and body reburied in separate caskets under the cathedral’s floor. Young Almagro, also known as El Mozo (“the lad”), fought on against Pizarro’s successor for the right to rule Peru. Defeated in battle and captured at Chupas on September 16, 1542, Almagro was executed the same day. Francisco Pizarro González was born in Trujillo, Spain. Most histories place that event sometime during 1471, though some opt for 1476. The illegitimate son of infantry colonel Gonzalo Pizarro and a peasant mother, Francisca González, Pizarro was a distant cousin of another future Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro, who toppled Mexico’s Aztec Empire in 1520. Eleven years before that familial triumph, in November 1509, Pizarro sailed with Alonso de Ojeda to Venezuela, and from there joined the fleet of explorer Martín Fernández de Enciso, probing Colombia’s Guajira Peninsula. In 1513, Pizarro accompanied Vasco Núñez de Balboa’s expedition to the Pacific Ocean. Six years later, acting on behalf of Governor Pedro Arias Dávila, Pizarro arrested Balboa on charges of usurping the governor’s authority. Balboa and four alleged accomplices were executed, and Dávila installed Pizarro as mayor and magistrate of Panama City. Pizarro held that post through 1523, then embarked on his first attempt to conquer the rich Inca Empire. Native resistance and inclement weather defeated him in 1524, and again in 1526, but Pizarro persevered in his quest to rival Cortés. Panama’s governor, Pedro de los Ríos, sought to recall Pizarro after the second abortive invasion, but Pizarro ignored his orders, finally penetrating northern Peru in April 1528. The wealth of precious Francisco Pizarro, Spanish governor of Peru, was metals he discovered there enassassinated by rebels in June 1541. (Michael couraged him, but Governor Nicholson/Corbis) Ríos refused to fund a third

PIZARRO GONZÁLEZ, FRANCISCO

expedition. Going over the governor’s head, Pizarro sailed back to Spain and secured backing from King Charles I, who granted approval and offered Pizarro control over any new lands that he conquered for the Spanish crown. Pizarro’s new status as Adelantado (military governor) of New Castille gave him virtually unlimited authority within 200 leagues (600 miles) of South America’s newly discovered Pacific Coast. Thus encouraged, Pizarro rallied family and friends, sailed back to Panama, and pushed off for Peru in January 1530. Participants in the new invasion of Peru included Pizarro’s brothers (Gonzalo, Hernando and Juan), a cousin (Pedro Pizarro), Francisco de Orellana (who would later discover and explore the Amazon River), and Diego de Almagro, a partner of Pizarro in his Peruvian adventures since 1524. Their military force included 180 men—70 below the minimum number demanded by King Charles—and 27 horses. At risk of arrest for failure to meet his enlistment quota, Pizarro sailed clandestinely with three ships, first to the Canary Islands, then to Panama. His third and final expedition to Peru embarked from Panama on December 15, 1530, reaching the coast of present-day Ecuador after 13 days at sea. There, Pizarro obtained some gold, silver and emeralds, shipping the booty back to Panama, where Diego de Almagro had remained to recruit more soldiers. April of 1531 brought Pizarro’s force to the Inca city of Tumbes, in northwestern Peru, where the Spaniards met resistance from Chief Chilimaza in the Battle of the Manglares. Victorious, Pizarro planted a cross and claimed the area for Spain, then moved on to kill 400 warriors under Chief Tumbala in the Battle of Puná, against Spanish losses of three dead and 26 wounded. Joined by Hernando de Soto with another band of soldiers, Pizarro pressed forward, founding the first Spanish settlement in Peru—only the third in South America—in July 1532, at the site of present-day Piura. As Pizarro advanced, Incan emperor Atahualpa was briefly distracted by a civil war against his brother Huáscar, which concluded with Huáscar’s defeat at the Battle of Quipaipan in April 1532. Resting at Cajamarca with some 80,000 soldiers, Atahualpa was initially contemptuous of the small force led by Pizarro and de Soto, but he decided to crush them as an object lesson to future invaders. Pizarro, though vastly outnumbered, conspired to achieve by guile what he could not secure by brute force. On November 15, 1532, Pizarro invited Atahualpa to a meeting at Cajamarca. The emperor arrived on November 16 with 2,000 bodyguards, unwisely divested of armor and all weapons aside from small ceremonial knives used to sacrifice llamas. Pizarro promptly staged an ambush, complete with a cavalry charge and volleys from four cannons, killing an estimated 2,000 Incas, capturing Atahualpa and some 5,000 more as they rampaged through the stricken city. While looting Cajamarca of gold and other treasures worth billions of dollars today, Pizarro held Atahualpa hostage to forestall retaliation by the Incan

429

430

PIZARRO GONZÁLEZ, FR ANCISCO

general Rumiñahui. After nine months in captivity, however, the Spaniards came to regard Atahualpa as more of a liability than an asset. In a ludicrous show trial, Pizarro convicted Atahualpa of rebelling against Spain, practicing idolatry, and murdering his brother Huáscar. Sentenced to death by fire, Atahualpa bargained for relative leniency, publicly converted to Catholicism, and was strangled with a garrote on August 29, 1533. From there, the conquest of Peru and decimation of the Incas proceeded apace, assisted by smallpox. Pizarro vanquished Inca forces in battle at Vilcaconga (August to November 1533), Cuzco (November 15, 1533), Maraycalla (early 1534), Mount Chimborazo (1534), Cuzco again (May 1536 to March 1537), Ollantaytambo (January 1537), and Abancay (July 12, 1537). During that march of slaughter, in January 1535, Pizarro founded the city of Lima, proclaiming it his greatest achievement in the New World. Three years later, escalating conflict between the Pizarro brothers and longtime ally Diego de Almagro culminated in the Battle of Las Salinas, fought on April 26, 1538. Gonzalo and Hernando Pizarro led the troops that killed Almagro and 150 of his men, thereby sowing the seeds of their brother’s assassination in June 1541. Francisco Pizarro remains, with Spain’s other conquistadors, a controversial figure in world history. Whereas some—mostly Spaniards—regard him as a hero from the Age of Exploration, many Peruvians (and Native Americans at large) brand his conquest of the Incan empire an exercise in genocide. Even King Charles I, sponsor and primary beneficiary of Pizarro’s expedition, wrote to Pizarro, “We have been displeased by the death of Atahualpa, since he was a monarch, and particularly as it was done in the name of justice.” Pizarro remains a popular figure in fiction, portrayed both as her and villain. German dramatist August von Kotzebue penned Die Spanier in Peru in 1788, adapted by Irish author Richard Brinsley Sheridan as Pizarro in 1799. An animated television series, The Mysterious Cities of Gold (1982–1983), casts Pizarro as a ruthless villain, and an episode of History Bites (“To Boldly Go,” first aired on July 17, 2004) portrays Pizarro as a parody of William Shatner’s spaceship captain James T. Kirk on Star Trek. Pizarro and Atahualpa hold center stage in Peter Schaffer’s play The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964), filmed under the same title in 1969 with Robert Shaw as Pizarro and Christopher Plummer as the Incan emperor. Pizarro has even conquered the realm of science fiction, in David Gordon’s novella Despoilers of the Golden Empire (1959) and in the Anthony Horowitz novel Evil Star (2006). In 1892, while preparing for preparing for a Christopher Columbus quincentennial celebration, workmen in Lima exhumed a corpse believed to be Pizarro’s and displayed it publicly in a glass casket. They were proved wrong in 1977, when excavation of the Lima cathedral’s foundation revealed Pizarro’s actual remains in a lead coffin labeled “Here is the head of Don Francisco

P O M P E Y T H E G R E AT

Pizarro Demarkes, Don Francisco Pizarro who discovered Peru and presented it to the crown of Castile.” Forensic pathologists examined both bodies, reporting that the latter’s skull bore multiple sword wounds, thereby confirming it as Pizarro’s. Further Reading Gabai, Rafael. Francisco Pizarro and His Brothers: The Illusion of Power in SixteenthCentury Peru. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. Hemming, John. The Conquest of the Incas. San Diego: Harvest Books, 2003. Koch, Peter. The Spanish Conquest of the Inca Empire. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007. MacQuarrie, Kim. The Last Days of the Incas. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008.

POMPEY THE GREAT (106 BCE–48 BCE) On September 30, 48 BCE, the dreams of Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus—better known to history as Pompey the Great—lay in ruins. After a confident beginning, his war against upstart would-be emperor Julius Caesar had gone badly, ending for Pompey with the loss of 2,000 men in the Battle of Pharsalus (central Greece), on August 8, 48 BCE. Fleeing to Egypt with his wife and son, Pompey was betrayed on arrival by Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator. With Caesar en route to Egypt, pursuing his foe, Ptolemy—or his chief eunuch Pothinus, in some accounts—decided to kill Pompey and thereby avert a war with Caesar. Landing at Alexandria one day after his 59th birthday, Pompey was surrounded and stabbed to death by two of Ptolemy’s guards, Achillas and Salvius, joined by Lucius Septimius, chief of Roman soldiers serving in the Egyptian army. According to Greek historian Plutarch, Pompey was then beheaded, with his corpse cremated on the beach, and his head and royal seal were presented to Caesar. Caesar, reportedly mourning his former friend’s fate, executed Pothinus and Achillas, then returned Pompey’s ashes to his widow, Cornelia. Pompey was born in Picenum, on the Adriatic Sea, on September 29, 106 BCE. His father, Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, was a wealthy landowner, shady politician, and a ruthless military leader, described by Cicero as “worthy of hatred on account of his cruelty, avarice, and perfidy.” When he died during a siege of Rome—either struck by lightning or killed by plague in 87 BCE—Strabo’s soldiers celebrated the event by hauling his corpse from its bier and dragging it through the streets. Pompey, then 20 years old, inherited his father’s estates and took command of his legion. He also faced trial for embezzling plunder seized during the recent war, but secured prompt acquittal by announcing his engagement to the judge’s daughter Antistia. In 83 BCE, Pompey raised three legions to join his father’s old ally, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, in a successful bid to unseat Roman consul Gnaeus Papirius

431

432

P O M P E Y T H E G R E AT

Carbo. Sulla, once installed as dictator, expressed his gratitude by offering his stepdaughter Aemilia Scaura to Pompey as his bride. Undeterred by the fact that both were married—and Aemilia was pregnant by her current husband— Pompey arranged a double divorce followed by his second hasty marriage. Aemilia subsequently died in childbirth, and Pompey remained firmly ensconced in Sulla’s good graces. In 82 BCE, Pompey conquered Sicily on Sulla’s behalf, thereby securing Rome’s source of grain, executing rival Gnaeus Papirius Carbo and many of his supporters in a slaughter that earned Pompey the nickname adulescens carnifex (“adolescent butcher”). A year later, he secured Rome’s Provincia Africa (part of present-day Tunisia) by defeating Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Nubian king Hiarbas at Utica. In the wake of those victories, Pompey returned to Rome and was greeted by Sulla as Magnus (“The Great”), although he remained a private citizen with no political rank. At the same time, Sulla denied Pompey’s request for a triumph—a civil ceremony and religious rite celebrating achievement of a military commander in wartime— and ordered Pompey to disband his legions. Pompey refused, rallying his soldiers at the gates of Rome, whereupon Sulla relented after a fashion. The dictator granted Pompey his triumph, but only after lavish ceremonies for himself and General Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius. Pompey began his maneuvers for political power in 78 BCE, backing Marcus Aemilius Lepidus over Sulla’s objections in that year’s consular election. Sulla died before year’s end, and when Lepidus sought to seize Rome by force, Pompey turned against him, driving him to exile in Sardinia, where he died in 78 BCE. Next, he sought appointment as proconsul of Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula), where General Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius had thus far failed to suppress rebel forces led by Quintus Sertorius. Granted joint command over Hispania with Metellus, Pompey arrived on the scene in 76 BCE, facing stiff guerrilla warfare until Sertorius was assassinated in 72 BCE. Hispania was fully secured for Rome by the following year, when Pompey returned to Italy. He arrived in time to join yet another conflict, the Third Servile War, pitting General Marcus Licinius Crassus against an army of 120,000 rebellious slaves led by Spartacus. Crassus had fared poorly in the war’s first two years, but Pompey’s reinforcements tipped the balance in Rome’s favor, killing 12,300 rebels and capturing 5,000 more in battle near present-day Strongoli, in Bruttium (now Calabria). Latecomer Pompey claimed full credit for suppressing the three-year revolt and received his second formal triumph, for victory in Hispania, December 31, 71 BCE. Swathed in glory, he won election as co-consul, serving with Crassus, at the unprecedented age of 35. Pompey’s next famous campaign was waged against Mediterranean pirates, under terms of the Lex Gabinia, passed in 67 BCE, granting him vast military power over all Roman territory within 50 miles of the coastline. (See sidebar.) Mounting a rapid and ruthless campaign, Pompey killed thousands of pirates,

P O M P E Y T H E G R E AT

sank hundreds of ships, and razed scores of seaports, driving those buccaneers who survived far inland to pursue their trade as landlocked bandits, reducing Mediterranean piracy to scattered incidents for the next four centuries. Before Pompey could return to Rome from that sweeping victory, Tribune Gaius Manilius nominated him to succeed Lucius Licinius Lucullus as commander in the Third Mithridatic War, ongoing in the region of present-day Armenia since 73 BCE. Lucullus resented Pompey’s appointment, calling him a “vulture” who fed on the hard work of other commanders, but the senate confirmed his replacement. True to form, Pompey arranged a treaty with King Tigranes the Great in 67 BCE, then pursued Mithridates VI of Pontus to his defeat and ultimate assassination four years later. In the process, Pompey secured Roman supremacy in Phoenicia and Coele-Syria, while laying siege to Jerusalem and killing 12,000 Jews under King Aristobulus II, restoring Hyrcanus II to the throne. Returning to Rome as a near-legendary figure, worshipped by a cult at Delos, Pompey celebrated his third triumph on his 45th birthday in 61 BCE, claiming conquests that exceeded those of Alexander the Great. For the first time in 21 years, Pompey dismissed his legions with land grants to surviving veterans, settling into an uneasy political alliance with Marcus Licinius Crassus and Gaius Julius Caesar, known as the First Triumvirate. Although lacking any official status, the arrangement served all three men, electing Caesar as consul in 61 BCE with a promise to promote various claims from Pompey and Crassus. (Again, in familiar style, Pompey helped cement the alliance by marrying Caesar’s daughter Julia.) Caesar named Pompey governor of Hispania in absentia, supervising transportation of grain to Rome, and then moved on to serve as proconsul in Gaul (now France). The First Triumvirate was showing signs of strain by 56 BCE, as Caesar surpassed his colleagues in popularity and military glory. At the same time, rumors spread that Crassus had conspired to murder Pompey. At a secret meeting in Lucca, Caesar suggested that Pompey and Crassus should seek reelection as joint consuls in 55 BCE, a goal accomplished at some cost through a campaign of bribery, intimidation, and violence. Once in office, they agreed to extend Caesar’s rule over Gaul for five years. Their own rewards, upon retirement from office, would be continued control over Hispania (for Pompey) and governorship of Syria for Crassus (desired as a launching pad for invading Parthia). The Triumvirate finally dissolved after Julia’s death during childbirth, in 54 BCE, and the Parthian defeat of Crassus a year later, which killed 20,000 Romans (Crassus among them) and led to the capture of 10,000 more at the Battle of Carrhae. Rome was humiliated by that defeat, which cost the Pathians only 100 soldiers. Pompey assuaged his grief at losing Julia and their infant child by wedding the newly widowed daughter of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica, an archenemy of Julius Caesar. Again, marriage advanced Pompey,

433

434

P O M P E Y T H E G R E AT

LEX GABINIA Enacted in 67 BCE, ancient Rome’s Lex Gabinia (Gabinian Law) granted Pompey the Great extraordinary proconsular powers over any province lying within 50 miles of the Mediterranean Sea. Named after its author, Tribune Aulus Gabinius, the law granted Pompey a command of 500 warships, 120,000 infantry, and 5,000 cavalry, with orders to suppress rampant piracy on the Mediterranean within three years’ time. In fact, he accomplished that goal within 40 days. Roman senators approved the law with considerable trepidation, fearing that the power placed in Pompey’s hands might establish him as a new dictator. A year later, passage of the Lex Manilia (named for Tribune Gaius Manilius) further expanded Pompey’s authority, granting him supreme command in the war against King Mithridates VI of Pontus, in place of predecessor Lucius Licinius Lucullus. Today, historians regard passage of the Lex Gabinia as a major step toward the senate’s collapse as Rome’s ruling body, marking a point of no return in that legislature’s ability to block concentration of power in the hands of powerful generals such as Pompey and Julius Caesar, a prelude to civil war that was, in turn, a precursor to the Roman Republic’s dissolution.

when he teamed with his father-in-law as consul of Rome in 52 BCE. Caesar began the long march back from Gaul, crossing the Rubicon River into Italy on January 10, 49 BCE, to initiate full-scale civil war. Pompey initially boasted that he could defeat Caesar by stamping his feet and raising legions from the soil of Italy, but instead, he wound up fleeing Rome, retreating toward Brundisium (now Brindisi) on the Adriatic Sea. Successive defeats drove him farther and farther from Rome, and to his ultimate death in Egypt. See also: Caesar, Gaius Julius (100 BCE–44 BCE).

Further Reading Greenhalgh, Peter. Pompey: The Republican Prince. London: George Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd, 1981. Leach, John. Pompey the Great. London: Routledge, 1986. Rawson, Beryl. The Politics of Friendship: Pompey and Cicero. Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1978. Seager, Robin. Pompey the Great: A Political Biography. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. Southern, Pat. Pompey the Great: Caesar’s Friend and Foe. Stroud, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom: Tempus Publishing, 2002.

PREMADASA, RANASINGHE

PREMADASA, RANASINGHE (1924–1993) On May 1, 1993, President Ranasinghe Premadasa attended a May Day rally in downtown Colombo, Sri Lanka. During the festivities, a suicide bomber linked to a militant separatist organization, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), detonated an explosive charge strapped to his body. The blast killed President Premadasa and 23 bystanders. Only nine days earlier, also in Colombo, an alleged LTTE gunman had assassinated Premadasa’s political rival Lalith Athulathmudali, then apparently had killed himself with cyanide. Further investigation, conducted by a special presidential commission, subsequently blamed Premadasa himself for Athulathmudali’s murder, charging that the gunman—if he even fired the shots—was murdered by conspirators to ensure his future silence. Thus far, no one has been charged with Premadasa’s slaying or the other May Day deaths. Ranasinghe Premadasa was born to family of limited means in Colombo, then British Ceylon, on June 23, 1924. He attended Colombo’s St. Joseph’s College, studying journalism and Asian languages, later translating various foreign works into the Sinhala language of his homeland. In his 20s, he joined the Ceylon Labour Party, founded in 1928 by Alexander Ekanayake Goonesinha, who later served as mayor of Colombo, a cabinet minister, and as a Sri Lankan ambassador abroad. Discouraged by the Labour Party’s prospects in

Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa, killed by a terrorist bomb in 1993. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

435

436

PREM ADASA, R ANASINGHE

the 1950s, Premadasa shifted his allegiance to the center-right United National Party (UNP), founded in September 1946. Ceylon, meanwhile, had achieved its independence from Great Britain in February 1948, with Don Stephen Senanayake elected as the nation’s first prime minister. Senanayake’s son Dudley succeeded him in March 1952, and named Premadasa to serve as minister of broadcasting, in charge of Radio Ceylon. Premadasa bided his time through successive administrations, while Ceylon underwent dramatic changes. In 1972, it became the Free, Sovereign and Independent Republic of Sri Lanka, with a new constitution. Five years later, with an 80-percent majority in parliament, the UNP amended that document to create an executive presidency, first occupied in February 1978 by then prime minister Junius Richard Jayewardene. In September 1978, a new constitution scrapped the bicameral legislature in favor of a single house, and established the president’s term as six years. Premadasa, chosen as prime minister in February 1978, found himself with less power than his predecessors in that office, but was determined to make the best of it. Premadasa retained the prime minister’s office until January 2, 1989, when he succeeded fellow UNP member Junius Jayewardene as president of Sri Lanka. He found himself presiding over a nation in rebellion, with LTTE guerrillas battling members of an Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in the north, and members of the Marxist–Leninist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (“People’s Liberation Front”) wreaking havoc in the south. India’s intrusion on Sri Lanka was unwelcome, and when the IPKF refused to withdraw, Premadasa reportedly brokered a secret agreement to arm the LTTE. That effort backfired when 774 Sri Lankan policemen surrendered to the LTTE at Premadasa’s request, then were slaughtered en masse. A presidential commission also determined, years later, that President Premadasa and members of the Sri Lankan army were “directly responsible” for the death of Lieutenant General Denzil Kobbekaduwa, killed by a land mine in August 1992, after he announced “Operation Final Countdown,” aimed at wiping out the LTTE. Another thorn in Premadasa’s side was Lalith Athulathmudali, his leading rival in the 1988 presidential election. Defeated in that contest, Athulathmudali joined third-place contender Lionel Gamini Dissanayake to create a new political party, the Democratic United National Front (DUNF), in 1991. The DUNF moved to impeach Premadasa that autumn, charging that the president had circumvented legal procedures in naming cronies to high political positions, and blocking Athulathmudali and Dissanayake from influential positions. A more serious accusation blamed Premadasa for the disappearance of Luxman Perera, a Sri Lankan playwright and close ally of Athulathmudali. Parliament rejected the impeachment petition in October 1991, but tension escalated nationwide, soon flaring into violence.

PREMADASA, RANASINGHE

Between November 1991 and August 1992, DUNF leaders reported four mob attacks on their rallies: at Pannala on November 2, at Madapatha on April 23, at Colombo’s Fort Railway Station on August 7, and at Dehiwala on August 29. On March 16, 1993, Premadasa’s regime dissolved the country’s seven provincial councils and announced elections for new members to be held on May 17. Lalith Athulathmudali promptly announced his attention to seek the chief ministership of the Western Province Council, but he was shot dead on April 23. One day later, police produced the corpse of a Tamil youth and supposed LTTE member named Ragunathan, branding him the assassin and claiming that he had killed himself with a cyanide capsule. Detectives from Scotland Yard were investigating those claims when a bomb killed President Premadasa on May 1. British detectives eventually filed their report, confirming the original verdict on Athulathmudali’s death and finding no evidence, direct or circumstantial, to support allegations that Athulathmudali was slain by government agents. Still, controversy persisted, contributing to a 1994 electoral victory for the People’s Alliance, an amalgam of the DUNF and six other leftist parties, which installed Chandrika Kumaratunga as president. In 1995, Kumaratunga appointed a three-member commission to investigate Athulathmudali’s murder. The commission’s final report, submitted in October 1997, exonerated Ragunathan as the killer, finding that he had been shot, then force-fed cyanide by persons unknown, presumed to be Athulathmudali’s actual assassins. The report named Colombo underworld “godfather” Arambawalage Don Ranjith Upali de Silva as Ragunathan’s probable slayer, and tagging gang member Janaka Priyanka Jayamanna as Athulathmudali’s killer. Other syndicate members implicated in the plot, and in prior attacks on DUNF rallies, included Wathudula Bandulage Somaratne, Nandasiri Karunatilake, and Bulathsinhalage Ajith Coorey (son of Sri Lanka’s minister of housing and construction, Bulathsinhalage Srisena Cooray). The report also charged Uswatte Liyanage Senivaratne, a UNP provincial councilor for the Western Province, of leading attacks on DUNF members. Finally, Sri Lankan police faced accusations of negligence and tampering with evidence in their investigation. Based on that report, in September 1998, prosecutors charged five police officers—including Inspector Devasundara, chief of the Terrorism Investigation Department—with framing and murdering “suspect” Ragunathan. Unknown gunmen killed three of those defendants prior to trial, apparently to silence them. Janaka Jayamanna was also slain, gangland-style, before he could be tried for Athulathmudali’s murder, as was Arambawalage Upali. Several other suspects spent up to four years in prison awaiting trial, then were apparently released. On December 18, 1999, President Kumaratunga was partially blinded in an LTTE attack in Colombo, during a campaign rally, but she survived to win reelection and served until November 2005.

437

438

P R I M Y P R AT S, J UA N

Further Reading Clarence, William. Ethnic Warfare in Sri Lanka and the UN Crisis. London: Pluto Press, 2006. Jeganathan, Pradeep, and Qadri Ismail, eds. Unmaking the Nation: The Politics of Identity & History in Modern Sri Lanka. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Social Scientists’ Association, 2009. Little, David. Sri Lanka: The Invention of Enmity. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1994. Pratap, Anita. Island of Blood. New York: Penguin Books, 2003. Richardson, John. Paradise Poisoned: Learning about Conflict, Terrorism and Development from Sri Lanka’s Civil Wars. Kandy, Sri Lanka: International Center for Ethnic Studies, 2005. Uyangoda, Jayadeva. Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka: Changing Dynamics. Washington, DC: East-West Center Washington, 2007. Weiss, Gordon. The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers. New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2012.

PRIM Y PRATS, JUAN (1814–1870) On December 28, 1870, General Juan Prim y Prats—president of Spain’s Council of Ministers—was ambushed by a group of unidentified gunmen outside the Chamber of Deputies on Calle del Turco, in downtown Madrid. Fatally wounded, Prim hung on until December 30, then died without identifying his assassins. No one was ever charged with the murder, though various suspects were named. A leading candidate for chief triggerman was José Paúl y Angulo, an ex-friend of Prim’s who had recently threatened his life in the newspaper El Combate (Combat), and who vanished from Madrid on the day of the shooting. From exile in France, Paúl denied the charge and accused Felipe Solís y Campuzano—an aide to Antoine d’Orléans, Duke of Montpensier—with instigating the assassination. Other proposed suspects include former Prim allies Francisco Serrano Domínguez Cuenca y Pérez de Vargas and Práxedes Mariano Mateo Sagasta y Escolar (both of whom served as Spanish prime ministers), along with Cuban slave traders and agents of Queen Isabella II. Juan Prim y Prats was born in Reus, Spain, on December 12, 1814, the son of Lieutenant Colonel Pablo Prim. At age 20, he joined a volunteer battalion supporting Queen Regent Maria Christina, widow of the late King Ferdinand VII, and her infant daughter Isabella II against supporters of Carlos V, brother of Ferdinand VII and pretender to the Spanish throne. That first of three “Carlist Wars” continued until 1839, ending in victory for Isabella’s side. Prim emerged from the conflict as a lieutenant colonel with two knighthoods, but he opposed the regime of Prime Minister Joaquín Baldomero Fernández-Espartero y Alvarez de Toro, commencing in October 1840, and was driven into exile. Prim joined General Francisco Serrano in rebellion against Espartero’s de facto dictatorship,

P R I M Y P R AT S , J U A N

and Espartero in turn departed for England in July 1843, when Isabella II was finally declared of age to occupy the throne. As a reward for Prim’s support, he was promoted to the rank of major general, with additional titles as Count of Reus and Viscount of El Bruc (a municipality in Catalonia). Ramón María Narváez succeeded Espartero as prime minister, but his administration likewise failed to meet Prim’s standard of democratic process, and for his renewed opposition, Prim was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment in the Philippines. Rather The 1870 assassination of Spanish general Juan Prim y Prats remains unsolved. (Getty Images) than serve that time, Prim fled Spain for exile in England and France, returning to his homeland after Narváez resigned in October 1847 and an amnesty for exiles was declared. Once again he was promoted, this time to the rank of field marshal, assigned to serve as captain-general (governor) of Puerto Rico. Returning to Spain after a year in the Caribbean, Prim was ready to serve in the Crimean War at its outbreak in October 1853. This time, however, he would be a noncombatant, posted as a military representative to Sultan Abdülmecid I of the Ottoman Empire, allied with Britain, France, and the kingdom of Sardinia against Russia. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1854, Prim threw his support to Prime Minister Leopoldo O’Donnell y Jorris two years later, and was promptly elevated to the rank of lieutenant general. Outstanding service in the Hispano-Moroccan War of 1859–1860 saw Prim honored with more titles, as Grandee of Spain and 1st Marquis of los Castillejos. His next assignment took Prim to Mexico, leading Spanish troops in support of Maximilian I, an Austrian naval officer chosen by Napoleon III of France to rule Mexico as a puppet emperor. Despite Prim’s best efforts, French rule of Mexico was a lost cause, climaxed in June 1867 when rebels led by Benito Juárez captured and executed Maximilian. Before that final act, Prim had returned to Spain, once again striking an oppositionist pose. He led a Catalonian rebellion against Prime Minister O’Donnell, and although O’Donnell prevailed,

439

440

P R I M Y P R AT S, J UA N

the brutality of his methods prompted Queen Isabella to demand his resignation in July 1866. O’Donnell’s successor, Ramón María Narváez, fought on against Prim until his death in April 1868. Five months later, Prim and ally Francisco Serrano defeated royal troops at the Battle of Alcolea, thereby concluding the “Glorious Revolution” and driving Isabella herself into exile. Serrano was appointed Regent in October 1868, doubling as prime minister from February 1869, and Prim became president of the Council of Ministers. The Chamber of Deputies thereafter moved to restore Spain’s monarchy under a new dynasty, electing the Duke of Aosta as King Amadeo I on November 16, 1870. Prim considered it a personal triumph, but he would not live to help Amadeo rule Spain under its new constitution. Two days after Prim expired from his gunshot wounds, Amadeo vowed to support the constitution, granting election of parliament by universal male suffrage. That agreement survived until Amadeo’s abdication on February 11, 1873, with Spain’s First Republic proclaimed that same night. Spanish author Benito Pérez Galdós (1843–1920) offered a quasi-fictional solution to the mystery of Prim’s assassination in his 1909 novel España trágica (Spanish Tragedy). Starting with events from his adolescence in Madrid, Galdós spun a tale of evil omens leading up to Prim’s murder, creating an almost surrealistic view of the crime. After personally naming José Paúl y Angulo as a prime suspect during the 1870s, based on published claims that Prim had recognized Paúl’s voice during the shooting, Galdós changed his tune three decades later, presenting an alternate cast of culprits via a list compiled by fictional character Segismundo García. As noted by University of Alabama scholar Brian Dendle in 1969, Galdós ultimately blames the assassination on a mixed cast of characters including surviving rebels from the Carlist Wars and offering what Dendle calls a “red herring” in the person of Antoine d’Orléans. José Paúl y Angulo, meanwhile, is reduced to the status of a peripheral player, branded a deranged epileptic incapable of plotting or carrying out the murder. The case remains officially unsolved. Further Reading Barker, Nancy. The French Experience in Mexico, 1821–1861: A History of Constant Misunderstanding. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Dendle, Brian. “Galdós and the Death of Prim.” Bibliotecha Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/anales-galdosianos—3/html/0254d158– 82b2–11df-acc7–002185ce6064_42.html. Holt, Edgar. The Carlist Wars in Spain. Chester Springs, PA: Dufour Editions, 1967. Pierson, Peter. The History of Spain. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. Thomson, Guy. The Birth of Modern Politics in Spain: Democracy, Association and Revolution, 1854–75. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Williams, Mark. The Story of Spain: The Dramatic History of Europe’s Most Fascinating Country. Rancho Mirage, CA: Golden Era Books, 2009.

Famous Assassinations in World History

This page intentionally left blank

Famous Assassinations in World History An Encyclopedia Volume 2: Q–Z

MICHAEL NEWTON

Copyright 2014 by ABC-CLIO, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Newton, Michael, 1951– Famous assassinations in world history : an encyclopedia / Michael Newton. volumes cm Includes index. ISBN 978-1-61069-285-4 (hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-61069-286-1 (ebook) 1. Assassination—History—Encyclopedias. I. Title. HV6278.N49 2014 364.152'403—dc23 2013031554 ISBN: 978-1-61069-285-4 EISBN: 978-1-61069-286-1 18

17

16

15

14

1

2

3

4

5

This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Preface

xv

Introduction

xvii The Encyclopedia

Volume 1 Abdallah Abderemane, Ahmed (1919–1989) Aguiyi-Ironsi, Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe (1924–1966) al-Banna, Sheikh Hasan Ahmed Abdel Rahman Muhammed (1906–1949) Albert I of Habsburg (1255–1308) al-Din Shah Qajar, Nasser (1831–1896) Alexander I of Serbia (1876–1903) Alexander I of Yugoslavia (1888–1934) Alexander II of Russia (1818–1881) Ali, Muhammad Mansur (1919–1975) Amin, Hafizullah (1929–1979) Aquino, Benigno Simeon, Jr. (1932–1983) Araujo, Manuel Enrique (1865–1913) Argaña Ferraro, Luis María del Corazón de Jesús Dionisio (1932–1999) Assassins Cult (ca. 1092–1275) Bahonar, Mohammad-Javad (1933–1981) Balbinus (165 CE–238 CE) Balewa, Abubakar Tafawa (1912–1966) Bandaranaike, Solomon West Ridgeway Dias (1899–1959) Bautista Gill García del Barrio, Juan (1840–1877) Becket, Thomas (1118–1170) Belzu Humerez, Manuel Isidoro (1808–1865) Beñaran Ordeñana, José Miguel (1949–1978)

1 2 3 6 7 9 10 12 14 15 17 20 21 23 27 28 30 32 34 35 38 40

vi

CONTENTS

Bent, Charles (1799–1847) Bhutto, Benazir (1953–2007) bin Laden, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad (1957–2011) Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev (1945–2001) Bishop, Maurice Rupert (1944–1983) Bobrikov, Nikolay Ivanovich (1839–1904) Bolles, Don (1928–1976) Borgia, Giovanni (1476–1497) Borsellino, Paolo (1940–1992) Boudiaf, Mohamed (1919–1992) Buback, Siegfried (1920–1977) Bush, George Walker (1946– )—Attempted Caesar, Gaius Julius (100 BCE–44 BCE) Caligula (12 CE–41 CE) Ca˘linescu, Armand (1893–1939) Canalejas y Méndez, José (1854–1912) Cánovas del Castillo, Antonio (1828–1897) Carlos I of Portugal (1863–1908) Carranza de la Garza, Venustiano (1859–1920) Carrero Blanco, Luis (1904–1973) Castillo Armas, Carlos (1914–1957) Castro Ruz, Fidel Alejandro (1926– )—Attempted Catargiu, Barbu (1807–1862) Cermak, Anton Joseph (1873–1933) “Chain Murders” (Iran) (1979–1998) Charles VII of Sweden (1130–1167) Chillingworth, Curtis Eugene (1896–1955) Chinnici, Rocco (1925–1983) Chitunda, Jeremias Kalandula (1942–1992) Clinton, William Jefferson (1946– )—Attempted Collins, Michael, Jr. (1890–1922) Danilo I, Prince of Montenegro (1826–1860) Daoud Khan, Mohammed (1909–1978) Delgado Chalbaud Gómez, Carlos (1909–1950) Deligiannis, Theodoros (1820–1905) Dessalines, Jean-Jacques (1758–1806)

42 43 45 48 49 51 52 54 56 57 59 61 65 67 69 71 72 73 75 76 78 80 83 84 87 92 93 94 96 97 99 103 104 106 108 109

CONTENTS

Devi, Phoolan (1963–2001) Ðind¯ic´, Zoran (1952–2003) Doe, Samuel Kanyon (1951–1990) Dollfuss, Engelbert (1892–1934) Dubs, Adolph (1920–1979) Duca, Ion Gheorghe (1879–1933) Dudayev, Dzhokhar Musayevich (1944–1996) Earp, Morgan Seth (1851–1882) Edmund I (922–946) Edward the Martyr (962–978) Eisner, Kurt (1867–1919) Elisabeth of Austria (1837–1898) Eric V of Denmark (1249–1286) Eric XIV of Sweden (1533–1577) Erim, Ismail Nihat (1912–1980) Evers, Medgar Wiley (1925–1963) Ewart-Biggs, Christopher Thomas (1921–1976) Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud (1906–1975) Faisal II of Iraq (1935–1958) Falcón, Ramón Lorenzo (1855–1909) Ferreira do Amaral, João Maria (1803–1849) Ford, Gerald Rudolph, Jr. (1913–2006)—Attempted Foster, Marcus Albert (1923–1973) Franz Ferdinand (1863–1914) Gaddafi, Muammar (1942–2011) Gandhi, Indira Priyadarshini (1917–1984) Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (1869–1948) Gandhi, Rajiv Ratna (1944–1991) García y Moreno y Morán de Buitrón, Gabriel Gregorio Fernando José María (1821–1875) Garfield, James Abram (1831–1881) Gaulle, Charles André Joseph Marie de (1890–1970)—Attempted Gaviria Correa, Guillermo (1962–2003) Gegeen Khan, Emperor Yingzong of Yuan (1303–1323) George I of Greece (1845–1913)

111 113 115 117 118 120 121 125 128 129 131 132 135 136 138 140 142 145 146 148 150 152 155 156 161 164 165 167 169 171 173 176 177 179

vii

viii

CONTENTS

Goebel, William Justus (1856–1900) González Dubón, Eduardo Epaminondas (1945–1993) Goulart, João Belchior Marques (1919–1976) Guerin, Veronica (1958–1996) Guevara, Ernesto “Che” (1928–1967) Guinness, Walter Edward (1880–1944) Gunn, David (1946–1993) Gustav III of Sweden (1746–1792) Habyarimana, Juvénal (1937–1994) Hamidaddin, Yahya Muhammad (1869–1948) Hammarskjöld, Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl (1905–1961) Hampton, Fred (1948–1969) Hani, Martin Thembisile “Chris” (1942–1993) Harald IV of Norway (ca. 1102–1136) Harrison, Carter Henry, Sr. (1825–1893) Hennessy, David C., Jr. (1858–1890) Henriot, Philippe (1889–1944) Henry III of France (1551–1589) Henry IV of France (1553–1610) Heureaux Lebert, Ulises (1845–1899) Heydrich, Reinhard Tristan Eugen (1904–1942) Hitler, Adolf (1889–1945)—Attempted Idiarte Borda, Juan Bautista (1844–1897) Ige, James Ajibola Idowu (1930–2001) Inejiro Asanuma (1898–1960) Jackson, Andrew (1767–1845)—Attempted Jackson, Wharlest, Sr. (1930–1967) James I, King of Scots (1394–1437) John Paul II (1920–2005)—Attempted Kabila, Laurent-Désiré (1939–2001) Kadyrov, Akhmad Abdulkhamidovich (1951–2004) Kahane, Meir (1932–1990) Kapodistrias, Ioannis Antonios (1776–1831) Kapuuo, Clemens (1923–1978) Karume, Sheikh Abeid Amani (1905–1972)

181 183 184 186 188 190 193 195 199 201 202 205 208 209 211 213 215 217 219 220 222 225 231 232 234 237 239 240 241 245 247 249 252 254 255

CONTENTS

Kennedy, John Fitzgerald (1917–1963) Kennedy, Robert Francis (1925–1968) Khoyski Isgender oglu, Fatali Khan (1875–1920) King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968) Ku Klux Klan (1866– ) Lambrakis, Grigoris (1912–1963) Laporte, Pierre (1921–1970) Lennon, John Winston (1940–1980) Letelier del Solar, Marcos Orlando (1932–1976) Lincoln, Abraham (1809–1865) Litvinenko, Alexander Valterovich (1962–2006) Liu, Henry (1932–1984) Long, Huey Pierce, Jr. (1893–1935) Lumumba, Patrice Émery (1925–1961) Luwum, Janani Jakaliya (1922–1977) Madero González, Francisco Ignacio (1873–1913) Maher Pasha, Ahmed (1888–1945) Maïnassara, Ibrahim Baré (1949–1999) Malcolm X (1925–1965) Marat, Jean-Paul (1743–1793) Maskhadov, Aslan Aliyevich (1951–2005) McGlinchey, Dominic (1954–1994) McKinley, William, Jr. (1843–1901) Medici, Giuliano de’ (1453–1478) Mitrione, Daniel Anthony (1920–1970) Moawad, René (1925–1989) Mohammed, Murtala Ramat (1938–1976) Mondlane, Eduardo Chivambo (1920–1969) Moore, Harry Tyson (1905–1951) Moro, Aldo (1916–1978) Moscone, George Richard (1929–1978) Mosharraf, Khaled (1938–1975) Mountbatten, Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George (1900–1979) Mussolini, Benito Amilcare Andrea (1883–1945)

257 264 269 271 277 281 282 285 288 291 295 298 299 302 305 307 309 311 312 317 320 321 323 326 328 330 331 333 335 336 339 341 342 344

ix

x

CONTENTS

Na¯der Sha¯h Afsha¯r (1688–1747) Nadir Shah, Mohammed (1883–1933) Narutowicz, Gabriel (1865–1922) Ndadaye, Melchior (1953–1993) Ngo Dinh Diem (1901–1963) Ngouabi, Marien (1938–1977) Nicholas II (1868–1918) Obama, Barack Hussein, II (1961– )—Attempted/Threatened Obregón Salido, Álvaro (1880–1928) Olympio, Sylvanus Epiphanio (1902–1963) Operation Wrath of God (1972–1992) Osman II (1604–1622) Ouko, John Robert (1931–1990) Palme, Sven Olof Joachim (1927–1986) Pardo Leal, Jaime (1941–1987) Park Chung-hee (1917–1979) Patterson, Albert Leon (1894–1954) Paul I of Russia (1754–1801) Perceval, Spencer (1762–1812) Peter III of Russia (1728–1762) Petliura, Symon Vasylyovych (1879–1926) Philip of Swabia (1177–1208) Philip II of Macedon (359 BCE–336 BCE) Phoenix Program (1965–1972) Pizarro González, Francisco (1471–1541) Pompey the Great (106 BCE–48 BCE) Premadasa, Ranasinghe (1924–1993) Prim y Prats, Juan (1814–1870)

351 353 355 358 361 366 369 375 381 384 386 391 393 397 401 403 406 409 412 415 418 420 422 425 427 431 435 438

Volume 2 Qadir, Haji Abdul (1951–2002) Qutuz, Saif ad-Din (?–1260) Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995) Radama II (1829–1863) Rahman, Ziaur (1936–1981) Rasputin, Grigori Yefimovich (1869–1916)

441 444 447 451 453 456

CONTENTS

Rathenau, Walther (1867–1922) Ratsimandrava, Richard (1931–1975) Razmara, Sepahbod Haj Ali (1901–1951) Reagan, Ronald Wilson (1911–2004)—Attempted Reina Barrios, José María (1854–1898) Remeliik, Haruo Ignacio (1933–1985) Remón Cantera, José Antonio (1908–1955) Ritavuori, Heikki (1880–1922) Rockwell, George Lincoln (1918–1967) Röhm, Ernst Julius Günther (1887–1934) Romero y Galdámez, Óscar Arnulfo (1917–1980) Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919)—Attempted Ryan, Leo Joseph, Jr. (1925–1978) Rzayev Gurbanoglu, Rail (1945–2009) Sá Carneiro, Francisco Manuel Lumbrales de (1934–1980) Sadat, Anwar El (1918–1981) Sadulayev, Abdul-Halim Abu-Salamovich (1966–2006) Salim, Ezzedine (1943–2004) Sánchez Cerro, Luis Miguel (1889–1933) Sandino, Augusto Nicolás Calderón (1895–1934) Sankara, Thomas Isidore Noël (1949–1987) Sargsyan, Vazgen (1959–1999) Schneider Chereau, René (1913–1970) Seleucus I (350s BCE–281 BCE) September, Dulcie Evonne (1935–1988) Shaka kaSenzangakhona (1781/87–1828) Sharples, Richard Christopher (1916–1973) Shermarke, Abdirashid Ali (1919–1969) Shevket Pasha, Mahmud (1856–1913) Smith, Joseph, Jr. (1805–1844) Sogdianus (?–423 BCE) Somoza Debayle, Anastasio (1925–1980) Somoza García, Anastasio (1896–1956) Stamboliyski, Aleksandar (1879–1923) Stambolov, Stefan Nikolov (1854–1895)

460 462 464 465 470 471 473 475 476 481 483 486 491 494 497 499 502 504 505 507 511 513 515 517 520 522 525 526 528 530 534 535 538 541 543

xi

xii

CONTENTS

Steunenberg, Frank (1861–1905) Stewart, James, Earl of Moray (1531–1570) Strang, James Jesse (1813–1856) Sverker I (?–1156) Takahashi Korekiyo (1854–1936) Taraki, Nur Muhammad (1917–1979) Taseer, Salmaan (1944–2011) Tisza de Borosjeno˝ et Szeged, István (1861–1918) Tjibaou, Jean-Marie (1936–1989) Tolbert, William Richard, Jr. (1913–1980) Tombalbaye, François (1918–1975) Trotsky, Leon (1879–1940) Trujillo Molina, Rafael Leonidas (1891–1961) Truman, Harry S. (1884–1972)—Attempted Umar ibn Al-Khatta¯b (586/590–644) Umberto I (1844–1900) Uwilingiyimana, Agathe (1953–1994) Valko, Ernest (1953–2010) Vance, Robert Smith (1931–1989) Verwoerd, Hendrik Frensch (1901–1966) Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom (1819–1901)—Attempted Vieira, João “Nino” Bernardo (1939–2009) Villa, Francisco “Pancho” (1878–1923) Villarroel López, Gualberto (1908–1946) Vom Rath, Ernst Eduard (1909–1938) Wallace, George Corley, Jr. (1919–1998)—Attempted Welch, Richard Skeffington (1929–1975) Wenceslaus I (907–935) William I, Prince of Orange (1533–1584) William II of England (1056–1100) Wood, John Howland, Jr. (1916–1979) Xerxes I of Persia (519 BCE–465 BCE) Yuldashev, Tohir Abduhalilovich (1967–2009) Zapata Salazar, Emiliano (1879–1919)

544 548 550 552 555 558 559 562 564 567 569 572 576 580 585 588 591 595 597 600 604 606 610 614 616 621 625 628 630 634 637 641 645 649

CONTENTS

Zhang Zuolin (1875–1928)

652

Zorig, Sanjaasuren (1962–1998)

655

Primary Documents 1. Assassination of Pompey the Great (48 BCE)— Plutarch’s Description of the Murder of Pompey in Egypt

661

2. Assassination of Julius Caesar (44 BCE)— Letter of Brutus to Cicero on Caesar’s Assassination (43 BCE)

664

3. Assassination of the Roman Emperor Caligula (41 CE)— Suetonius’s Account of the Murder

668

4. Death of William II, King of England (1100)— Description of William’s Death by Chronicler Peter of Blois

671

5. Murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket (1170)— The Eyewitness Account of Edward Grim

672

6. Assassination of Albert I of Habsburg (1308)— Act V, Scene 2 of the Play Wilhelm Tell by Friedrich Schiller (1804)

675

7. Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1865)—Official Messages and Correspondence Relating to the Shooting of President Lincoln (April 15, 1865)

680

8. Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1865)— General Court-Martial Orders No. 356 for Trial of the Lincoln Assassination Conspirators

683

9. Assassination of Czar Alexander II of Russia (1881)— Prince Peter Kropotkin’s Account of the Murder

688

10. Assassination of James A. Garfield (1881)— Address of Vice President Chester A. Arthur upon Assuming the Presidency

691

11. Assassination of Morgan Earp (1882)— Tombstone Epitaph Account of the Murder

693

12. Assassination of William McKinley (1901)— Newspaper Accounts of the Shooting and Death of the President

694

13. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1914)— Austrian Official Report on the Assassination

700

14. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1914)— Excerpts from American Newspaper Accounts of the Murder of the Archduke and His Wife

703

xiii

xiv

CONTENTS

15. Assassination of Emiliano Zapata (1919)— Three Accounts of the Ambush 16. Assassination of Senator Huey P. Long (1935)— Senator Long’s “Share the Wealth” Program (1934) 17. Assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem (1963)— State Department Cables Concerning the Coup That Overthrew President Diem of South Vietnam 18. Assassination of John F. Kennedy (1963)—Excerpts from the Warren Commission Report (1964) 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) 20. Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (1968)—Edward M. Kennedy’s Eulogy for His Brother Robert F. Kennedy 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) 22. Attempted Assassination of Ronald Reagan (1981)— Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (1993) 23. Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin (1995)— Last Speech of Israeli Prime Minister Rabin

709 715

720 727

780 797

800 808 812

Appendix: World Timeline of Assassinations

815

Selected Bibliography

835

Index

837

Preface

Famous Assassinations in World History: An Encyclopedia aims to fill a gap in scholarship concerning political murder, as practiced worldwide, throughout recorded history. It is intended to serve both a general audience and the more specific needs of professional, scholarly researchers active in the study of criminology, terrorism, and related fields. At the time of writing, no comparable source was available in print. The work in hand defines assassination as the murder of a prominent public figure: heads of state and other government officials, religious leaders, spokespersons for political parties and social movements, journalists active in molding public opinion, and so on. Professional criminals slain during internecine gang wars are excluded, regardless of their national or global notoriety, on grounds that their murders accomplish nothing but installment of a new “boss” or “godfather” for a particular syndicate. Likewise, celebrities killed by obsessive stalkers are ignored, with one exception, since their deaths have no impact on society at large beyond the transient grief of fans. The lone exception, musician John Lennon, is included here because of his sociopolitical activities in later life, and the persistent claims of government conspiracy behind his death. The encyclopedia’s two volumes include 266 main entries, arranged alphabetically, selected on the basis of their prominence in history and impact on events of their respective eras. Four entries chart the histories of specific organizations involved in multiple assassinations spanning centuries, and the remainder describe specific assassinations (or attempted assassinations) occurring between 465 BCE and 2012. Entries describing a particular assassination include details of the event, a brief biography of the victim(s), and the aftermath of each slaying, including its political and societal impact, plus pertinent depictions in popular culture. Entries are cross-referenced as necessary. To facilitate additional research, each entry includes suggested sources for further reading, and a selected bibliography of general works on assassination is also included. As supplements to the main entries, 54 shorter sidebar articles enhance the text with information on groups, movements, persons, or events related to a particular assassination or to assassinations in general. These sidebars help to place specific murders in context, further illuminate the motives and the

xvi

P R E FA C E

backgrounds of participants, and describe events that sprang from violence directed against public figures. The section of entries is followed by a selection of 23 primary documents. Arranged chronologically, these documents comprise accounts of assassinations and reports of investigations, as well as speeches and statutes that preceded or resulted from the murders. The documents included range from Plutarch’s description of the murder of Pompey the Great in Egypt in 48 BCE, through the last speech of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, delivered moments before his murder in 1995. Finally, to ensure complete coverage of the subject, an appendix provides a timeline of other prominent assassinations omitted from the main text entries due to space constraints. That list includes 486 cases, spanning the globe and the years from 748 BCE to 2012. In that timeline, continents and their countries are arranged alphabetically, with assassinations and attempts for each specific country listed chronologically. A detailed subject index will help users find important figures, events, and ideas in the main entries. Every effort has been made to present timely, complete, and accurate information throughout Famous Assassinations in World History. That said, available sources—particularly those concerned with ancient crimes and modern, controversial cases—frequently provide conflicting dates, names, and descriptions of events. In each case, I have chosen what appears to be the best and most substantive information currently available. Readers wishing to suggest corrections for perceived inaccuracies, or to offer further data on the cases here described, may contact the author through ABC-CLIO, or directly through his Web site at www.michaelnewton.homestead.com.

Introduction

Assassination may be viewed as the ultimate expression of protest—against a government regime or its opponents, a religious or sociopolitical movement, even against an idea deemed hateful by the assassin. Whether the act is committed by a disaffected individual, a gang of conspirators, or an official government agency, whether its result is mourned or cheered by millions, an assassination—simple murder elevated to a noteworthy event by the selection of its victims—has the potential to change history. We often hear it said that violence accomplishes nothing. Sociologists may quarrel with historians over that hoary adage, parsing the impact of mayhem ranging from petty street crimes to acts of terrorism and genocide, but with regard to assassination, the record is indisputable: selective murders have changed history, for good or ill, and sometimes on an epic scale. A few examples should suffice. Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1865 doomed any hope of peaceful reconciliation between the victorious North and defeated South after America’s Civil War, plunging the former Confederacy into the decade of turmoil and terrorism known—at least in the minds of white supremacists affected by the loss of their former slaves—as “Radical Reconstruction.” Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s slaying in 1914 triggered the global tragedy of World War I—perhaps inevitable, in the climate of the times, but waiting for a trigger incident to light the fuse. That four-year struggle claimed at least 9,407,136 lives on three continents, and while publicly billed as the “War to End All War,” World War I in fact set the stage for an even more devastating conflict, beginning only 20 years later. The mass execution of Russia’s royal family in 1918 climaxed one of the world’s great revolutions, setting the stage for seven decades of “hot” and “cold” war between Moscow and the reputed “free world.” The final death toll for that worldwide war of shadows, “police actions,” and counterrevolutions may only be vaguely estimated, but it certainly ran into millions. The murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968 prompted many African American leaders to abandon nonviolent protest against racial inequity, igniting ghetto fires from coast to coast and hastening the rise of militant groups fixed on a dead-end collision course with hostile authorities. The slaying of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, one month after King, clearly contributed to

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 national shame of Watergate. Speculation and debate persist, surrounding other assassinations and bungled attempts. Few deny that killing Adolf Hitler in 1944 might have saved lives in the hundreds of thousands, at least. Recorded statements from President 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, admittedly, 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 determined 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 economy determine the final scope of every published reference work. Second, some entries were selected (or omitted) based on the author’s personal 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 grievous 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 President 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 students 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

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 violence persist on Earth. If anything, our world appears to be a more chaotic, violent 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. Narcoterrorism 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 produced 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.

xix

This page intentionally left blank

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. Leaving 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 accomplices 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 divided 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 antiTaliban 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 resistance, lately returned from Pakistan to fight the Taliban—was captured and executed by Taliban members on October 26, 2001, shortly after meeting with agents of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to coordinate strikes on the enemy. (An alternate version blames the CIA for his death, citing an interview in which Haq reportedly said, “We cannot be America’s puppets.”) Soon afterward, on November 13, Haji Qadir emerged as a leader of the Eastern Shura, a regional antiTaliban unit operating in Nangarhar and Khost Provinces. In December 2001, Qadir traveled to Bonn, Germany, as a delegate Afghani politician Haji Abdul Qadir, killed in an to the International Conference ambush in July 2002. (Reuters/Corbis) on Afghanistan, where he endorsed selection of Hamid Karzai 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 appointment 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 burgeoning opium trade. Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar had collaborated 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 reward 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

Peter Symonds, writing for the World Socialist Web Site in July 2002, branded Qadi a “thug and smuggler,” calling him “notorious for his association 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 Afghanistan 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 creation 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 professional 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. Defused before it detonated, the bomb was clearly meant to kill attending cabinet 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 Afghanistan’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 International System. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002. Saikal, Amin. Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012. Symonds, Peter. “Afghan Vice-President Murdered in Broad Daylight.” World Socialist Web Site. July 9, 2002. http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/07/afgh-j09.html.

443

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 Battle 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 assassins 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 descent 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, Shahrzuri 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

He accomplished that at the Battle of Ain Jalut, on September 3, 1260. Fielding 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 conquered 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 together. 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 surviving 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 entirely. 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 Antioch 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 territory despite several significant victories. Historians report that Baibars died in Damascus on July 1, 1277, from drinking poisoned kumis (fermented mare’s

445

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 between 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 security 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 sentence 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 Mandate 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 irrigation engineer. He abandoned that goal at age 19, in May 1941, joining the Palmach (“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 numerous 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 Military 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 promotion 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, Jordan, 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, defeating 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

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 Liberation of Palestine, parked at Uganda’s Entebbe Airport under the protection of dictator Idi Amin. The raiders killed seven hijackers and 45 Ugandan soldiers, 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 orders. 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 disagreed 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 September 13, 1984, when he replaced Moshe Arens as minister of defense under Prime Minister Shimon Peres. He retained that cabinet post under Prime Minister 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 National 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 formal recognition of PLO leader Yasser Arafat as the Palestinian National Authority’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

449

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 administration 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 accounts 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 inflicted 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 circumstance 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

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, reviled 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 legalize dueling. Fearing that the king’s scheme would result in anarchy, Prime Minister 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 entourage. 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 punishment based on royal decrees alone. A public announcement declared that Radama 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

451

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 successors. Conservatives backed Ranavalona’s nephew, Ramboasalama, and progressives led by Prime Minister Rainilaiarivony supported Radama. The latter faction triumphed, compelling Ramboasalama to swear an oath of allegiance to his cousin before he was banKing Radama II of Madagascar, strangled by rebelished to exile in the highland lious soldiers in 1863. (Chris Hellier/Corbis) 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 exclusive 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 legalization 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

(1877), establish a new legal system (1878), and promulgate a new constitution (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 status of a French protectorate (called Malagasy) by September 1895. A wave of antiforeign, anti-Christian rioting ensued, prompting France to annex Madagascar as a colony in 1896. Despite the muddled circumstances of his death, murder described as suicide, 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 escaped, living to a ripe old age in anonymity near Lake Kinkony, in northwestern 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 Former 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 local 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 Colonel 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 sentencing 5 to varying prison terms. An additional 20 officers were dismissed from service for failing to detect and avert the conspiracy.

453

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 father, 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 Muslims, both of whom wanted to rule the new nation. Instead, a month later, the Muslimcontrolled Dominion of Pakistan was created in two segments, 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 regions from Islamabad. Press) 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 (Parliament 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 Zulfikar 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

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 homeland. The resultant conflict, including Indian intervention against West Pakistan 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 service 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 forthcoming 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 Bangladesh 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, appointed 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 compelling him to resign. Four days later, Lieutenant Colonel Abu Taher and a group of leftist officers from the Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal (National Socialist Party, unrelated to Adolf Hitler’s Nazis), killed Mosharraf and imprisoned Jamil, while liberating 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 Musharraf 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 executed on July 21, 1976. Officers who protested that action soon found themselves 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, remains 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”

455

456

R ASPUTIN, GRIGORI YEFIMOVICH

for curing Bangladesh’s domestic ills sidestepped socialism, emphasizing selfreliance, 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 fundamentalism 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, Bangladesh: 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 Military 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 Yusupov 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 accomplices Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and Black Hundreds’ militia leader Vladimir Purishkevich, planned to kill Rasputin for exerting a corrupting influence

RASPUTIN, GRIGORI YEFIMOVICH

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 wouldbe 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 Pokrovskoye, Tyumen Oblast, on January 22, 1869. A son of peasants, his siblings included 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). Detractors 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 pleasures of the flesh. He married Praskovia Dubrovina in 1889, siring three children 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 calming 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 Petersburg. Despite that endorsement, however, the Holy Synod of the Eastern Orthodox Church shunned Rasputin, accusing him of various corrupt and immoral actions.

457

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 newspapers. 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 promiscuity, 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 Rasputin’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. Addressing 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 Purishkevich 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

Much remains mysterious about Rasputin’s death. His autopsy report vanished 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 University 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 archives, suggests that the cleric’s pursuit of women was, if not entirely fabricated, 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 Alexandra (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 resurrected fiend, invoking Lovecraftian demons to conquer Earth. Most recently, in 2011, French actor Gérard Depardieu portrayed Rasputin in the eponymous 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, Gloucestershire, 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.

459

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: Aventine 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 overtaken by another, occupied by three members of the Organisation Consul (OC), an ultranationalist group formed in 1921 by remnants of the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt, after that organization’s abortive coup failed to topple the Weimar Republic. 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 financial 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 European electrification, founder of the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (General Electricity Company, or AEG) in 1883. Walther’s maternal grandfather was Benjamin Liebermann, a prominent Berlin textile manufacturer. Trained as an engineer, 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 assassination. 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

society. He viewed that course as the best means of eliminating 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, Rathenau succeeded his father as chairman of AEG and held a senior position in the war ministry’s raw materials department, 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 moment, Rathenau was named to serve as minister of reconstruction 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, including payment of war reparations, surrender of foreign colonies, and reduction 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 fomenting 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 December 27, 1922, article in the Münchener Post, the OC’s secret handbook included 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 attain 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

461

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 education 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 secret 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 resulted. 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. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971. Kessler, Henry. Walter Rathenau: His Life and Work. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 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 (Mobile 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

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 Spéciale 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. Madagascar’s first president, Philibert Tsiranana, although hailed as the “Father of Independence,” 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 interior, 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 referendum 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 successor 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 October 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, secretary 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 discussing 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.

463

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 service 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 Reza¯ Sha¯h Pahlavı¯ 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 AngloIranian Oil Company (today British Petroleum, or BP). He supported ratification of a Supplemental Oil Agreement between that firm and Iran, despite strong opposition from members of the National Consultative Assembly and a majority of grassroots Iranians, including complaints that the agreement denied Iranian officials 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 believed, would be strong enough to face down Mossadegh and the National Front.” During his brief term in office, Razmara promoted a scheme for decentralizing 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) troubled wealthy land owners, even as his opposition to expropriation of AngloIranian 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 Minister 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

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 Reza¯ Sha¯h Pahlavı¯ in charge of a military junta with General Fazlollah Zahedi as his chief enforcer. The brutal tactics of that dictatorship eventually spawned the Iranian Revolution of 1979, deposing the shah and establishing extreme fundamentalist Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as the nation’s new ruler. Conspiracy theories persist in Razmara’s assassination. Although Khalil Tahmasebi 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, whereupon an army sergeant fired the fatal shots. Further Reading Abrahamian, Ervand. The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations. New York: The New Press, 2013. De Ballaique, Christopher. Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Tragic AngloAmerican 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 Terror. 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 curious 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 determination 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

465

466

REAGAN, RONALD WIL SON

from his chest. Luckily, although Hinckley had loaded his pistol with “Devastator” 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 institution 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. Another 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 active 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 features and short films, including five where he provided voice-overs for army productions. 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 appearances 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 Roosevelt’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 industry. For a time, he also served the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as

REAGAN, RONALD WILSON

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 senator Barry Goldwater launched his presidential race with a proclamation that “extremism 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 Goldwater in November, carrying 43 states to Goldwater’s six, but Reagan emerged as a star of the disastrous campaign, delivering a half-hour televised endorsement 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 candidate. He defeated two-term incumbent Edmund “Pat” Brown, and was subsequently 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 Gerald 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,

467

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 Reform Act of 1984, restricting psychiatric expert testimony on “ultimate legal issues” 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 obsessive love. Fueled by 15 viewings of the Taxi Driver (see sidebar), he became convinced that only murder of a president could seal their illusory romantic bargain. First, he stalked Reagan predecessor Jimmy Carter, and was arrested in October 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 Manhattan 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 Reagan 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 preservation 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

After trial, from his hospital room, Hinckley sent letters to condemned Florida serial killer Theodore Bundy and tried to obtain an address for California killer-cult leader Charles Manson, but was blocked from further correspondence with notorious slayers. On December 30, 2005, a federal judge approved visits to Hinckley’s family home in Virginia, “supervised” by his parents, after various psychologists deemed his depression and psychotic disorder 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 Hinckley had a dinner date scheduled at the home of Bush’s son, Silverado Savings & 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 connections, 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 Penguin, 1987. Wilbur, Del. Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan. New York: Henry Holt, 2011.

469

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 property 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, reporters 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 “patriotic 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 teenager, 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 Barrios 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 Central 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 Orleans, 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 Guatemala, where he found Barillas under fire for economic problems and a recent unpopular war. Reina challenged Barillas in the next national election and defeated him, assuming the presidency for a six-year term on March 15, 1892.

REMELIIK, HARUO IGNACIO

Reina’s tenure in the presidential palace was as troubled as his predecessor’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 Central 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 palace 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 antipathy 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 cities throughout Guatemala. Further Reading Adams, Richard. “Accustomed to Be Obedient.” In The Guatemala Reader: History, Culture, 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 Palau 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 killers) 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.

471

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 shortstatured 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 magazine 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 murderer 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

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 Melwert 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 television’s 20/20 news program, suggested involvement by the U.S. Central Intelligence 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 attorney Rubén O. Miró confessed to shooting Remón and named then-president

473

474

REMÓN CANTER A, JOSÉ ANTONIO

Guizado as the plot’s mastermind. Miró recanted his statement at trial, claiming coercion, and was subsequently acquitted. Guizado remained in custody, pending a trial that never materialized, until his final release in December 1957. Remón’s murder remains officially unsolved today. José Remón Cantera was born in Panama City, to a politically prominent family, on April 11, 1908. He graduated from the Military Academy in 1931, then joined the National 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 between 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 conservative National Patriotic Coalition. His pro-U.S. stance, including suppression 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

CIA—well-documented partners in drug trafficking from Europe, later from Southeast Asia and Central America—in Remón’s assassination. A subplot involves 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. Berkeley, 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 newspaper 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 imprisonment, 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 independent 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 during 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.

475

476

ROCKWELL, GEORGE LINCOLN

An early member of the National Progressive Party, founded in December 1918, Ritavuori served briefly as deputy minister of justice under Finland’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 action by their paramilitary “protection guard” units during the East Karelia uprising of 1921–1922. With so much agitation against him, some observers suspected that Ritavuori 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 Jansson. 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 family 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 parliament, 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

back to his car, telling a laundromat attendant, “I forgot something.” He started the car, then recoiled as two bullets slammed through the windshield. 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 operators of a nearby barbershop responded 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. Ambulance attendants found Rockwell dead on the scene, while police swarmed the neighborhood. They found the sniper’s An American Nazi Party defector shot party gun—a “broomhandle” Mauser founder George Lincoln Rockwell in 1967. (Assopistol, last manufactured in ciated Press) 1937—and then caught suspect 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 mother’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 August 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 increasing bigotry. Discharged from service as a lieutenant commander in September 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 active naval duty during the Korean War, rising to the rank of commander. Upon

477

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, posing 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 various groups, ranging from the “respectable” John Birch Society to the notoriously 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 Arlington, 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 Manhattan’s Union Square on June 22, Rockwell faced a crowd of Holocaust survivors 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 religious should be executed. Press to estimate how many Jews that might involve, 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 evaluation. 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 Freedom. In 1964, he sought the U.S. presidency as a write-in candidate, receiving 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

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 himself in 1965, after the New York Times revealed his Jewish ancestry. Rockwell joined Klansmen to protest Dr. King’s open-housing marches in Cicero, Illinois, 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 debating 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 newsletter, 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 application 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 discharged military veteran, at Virginia’s Culpeper National Cemetery, but military 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.

479

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 minorities. Beyond that, they are frequently at odds with one another, quarreling 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 Detroitbased 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 Macdonald.” 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 Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in April 1995. Another novel, Hunter, extolled the crimes of racist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin.

Koehl’s ascension to leadership of the NSWPP split the party, which he renamed the New Order, cast as a quasi-religious group merging “esoteric Nazism” 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

Rosenthal, A. M., and Arthur Gelb. One More Victim. New York: New American Library, 1967. Schmaltz, William. Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. Washington, 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 brownshirted 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 indicating 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 Infantry 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 injury 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 adjutant 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 Fatherland’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

481

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 February 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 convicted 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. Meanwhile, 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 Hernando 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 latest 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, harassing Jews, and engaging in street fights with leftist opponents. Under Röhm, the group expanded its activities to include intimidation of unfriendly politicians, journalists, civic leaders, and entrepreneurs. Curiously, despite growing Nazi alliances with industry, Röhm often sent his Brownshirts to defend striking 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, although despising gays nearly as much as he hated Jews, ignored those indiscretions 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 industrialists 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 revolution” 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 rumblings, in February 1934 Röhm called for a merger of the Reichswehr (restricted

ROMERO Y GALDÁMEZ, ÓSCAR ARNULFO

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 reduce 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, Hindenburg remained determined to suppress political mayhem in Germany. Early June brought a warning from Defense Minister Werner von Blomberg, advising Hitler that failure to curb SA violence would result in martial law, handing the reins of government to the Reichswehr. Hitler then struck a bargain with army leaders to eliminate the SA via “Operation Hummingbird.” Others 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 relatively 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 Macmillan, 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 gunman 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

483

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 repression 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 Barrios 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 interrupted 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 quasiMarxist 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 December 1975. On February 23, 1977, Romero reached the pinnacle of his career with appointment as archbishop of San Salvador. Seventeen days after Romero’s last promotion, death squad gunmen murdered 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 newspapers 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 religion, 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 development. 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

President Arturo Armando Molina ignored Romero’s demand for a full investigation, 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 president Carlos Humberto Romero, initiating a program of land reform coupled with nationalization of El Salvador’s the banking, coffee, and sugar industries. Dissension within the junta frustrated further progress, however, and violence against the church persisted, culminating with Archbishop Romero’s assassination in March 1980. On January 10, 1981, the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front launched a guerrilla war against the government, prompting U.S. support for the ruling junta in the civil war continuing until January 1992. In the midst of that mayhem, government troops massacred 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 statement from former U.S. ambassador Robert White that “there was sufficient evidence” 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 imposed 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.”

485

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 canonization 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, recognizes 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 recently, 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 Assassination 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

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 William 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 childhood, he was home-schooled by tutors, developing a lifelong fascination with zoology and taxidermy. Aided by an eidetic memory, he matriculated to Harvard 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 campaign 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, interrupted periodically by wideranging travels, establishment of ranches on the West, and publication of several memoirs on big-game hunting. Roosevelt married Alice Hathaway Lee in October 1880, then lost her to kidney disease in February 1884, on the fourth anniversary of their engagement. Typhoid fever killed his mother that same day, whereupon 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 HoLosing himself for two years as tel in Milwaukee, in 1912. (Library of Congress)

487

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 appointment to the U.S. Civil Service Commission, he served there until 1895, then accepted appointment as New York City’s police commissioner. The department’s official history describes Roosevelt as “an iron-willed leader of unimpeachable honesty,” possessed “a reforming zeal.” As commissioner, he established new disciplinary rules, created a bicycle squad to enforce traffic 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 McKinley 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.” Leading 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 dismounted 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 Department. 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 Roosevelt from the governor’s mansion two years ahead of schedule. Other party bosses, including Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio, opposed Roosevelt’s vicepresidential 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 conservationist and zealous—if selective—“trust buster,” curbing the power of monopolistic 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 Inspection 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

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 “exercise 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 Japanese 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 specifically 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 President Charles Fairbanks to endorse Secretary of War William Taft as his preferred 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 mentor, filing 90 antitrust lawsuits in four years, compared to 54 filed by “trustbusting” 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, Roosevelt 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, however, 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

489

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, unemployed, 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 recalling President McKinley’s death in the care of physicians—declined surgery to remove Schrank’s bullet, but reluctantly accepted an injection of tetanus antitoxin. (The slug was never removed, and caused no lasting physical impairment.) 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 renamed as Rio Roosevelt. Finally stricken with inflammatory rheumatism in October 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. president 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 America. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Foley, W. J. “A Bullet and a Bull Moose.” JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association 209 (1969): 2035–38. Gores, Stan. The Attempted Assassination of Teddy Roosevelt. Madison: Wisconsin Historical 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 .

RYAN, LEO JOSEPH, JR. (1925–1978) On November 14, 1978, California congressman Leo Ryan flew from Washington, D.C., to Guyana with a delegation of government officials, media representatives, 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 welcome, 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 Lincoln, Nebraska, on May 5, 1925. His family moved often during his childhood, spending time in five other states. Ryan graduated from a Wisconsin 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 submarine from 1943 to 1946. Upon discharge from the navy, he enrolled at Creighton University 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 othcity councilman from 1956. In ers in his party in an ambush at a landing strip January 1961, he chaperoned while leaving Jonestown. (Bettmann/Corbis)

491

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 reporting 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 Newfoundland to observe and report on the annual slaughter of seals, then turned his attention to lapses in congressional oversight of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In 1974, with Iowa senator Harold Hughes, Ryan coauthored 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 themselves 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. Reports 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 stonewalling” 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 administration’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 .

MARK LANE Mark Lane (born on February 24, 1927) is a U.S. attorney, author, and former 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 Indictment 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 writings. Before that film’s release, in 1970, Lane joined several committees investigating alleged U.S. war crimes in Vietnam and published his findings 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 capacity, Lane has represented James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Dr. Martin 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) suggests 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 Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones. On November 18, 1983, Ryan was posthumously 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.

493

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 Representative 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 remained 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, Missile and Aerospace Systems, in that institution’s Aircraft Electronics and Communication Systems program. Graduating there in 1966, he was posted to Baku’s Airforce District as a senior technician, later promoted to deputy division commander. In 1975, he entered Kalinin’s Marshal Georgy Zhukov Military Command Academy of Air Defense, a center dedicated to research on problems of operational art and tactics, command, communications, and control in air-defense matters. From 1980 to 1992, Rzayev held various highranking posts in the Soviet air force. The collapse of Russian communism liberated Azerbaijan from Soviet control 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

Despite a short list of possible suspects, no cogent motive for Rzayev’s murder has yet been suggested. An Azeri criminal lawyer, speaking anonymously, suggested 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.

495

This page intentionally left blank

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 falling 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 during 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 followed in his father’s footsteps as a lawyer, then turned to politics as a National Assembly member, working toward gradual dissolution of Prime Minister António 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 “Carnation 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 election 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 government 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 Surprise” 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 machinery”) to Iran, with some passing through Portugal. Defense Minister Costa reportedly 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 Commandos para a Defesa da Civilização Ocidental—Commandos for Defense of Western 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-andMr-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 University 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

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 crossing of the Suez Canal to support Syrian forces at the onset of the brief Yom Kippur War (October 6–25, 1973). Unknown to Sadat at the time, Muslim cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman had declared a fatwa¯ 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 automatic rifles, killing Sadat and 11 others, Cuba’s ambassador to Egypt among them. Vice President Hosni Mubarak was injured, with 27 other victims. Despite 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 Egyptian 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)

499

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 villagers who battled British soldiers in the Denshawai Incident of June 1906. Committed to Egyptian nationalism, Sadat graduated from Cairo’s Royal Military 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 offices 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 collaboration with the Soviet Union. At the same time, he imprisoned various “liberals” and Muslims, particularly members of Takfir wal-Hijra (“Excommunication and Exodus”), a radical offshoot of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, 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 terrorism 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

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 passage 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 displaced Palestinian Arabs. In November 1977, Sadat broke new ground as the first Arab leader to visit Israel, addressing the Knesset in Jerusalem after a private meeting with Prime Minister Menachem Begin. There, he called for implementation 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 Accords 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 Sadat’s assassination. Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, author of the fatwa¯ condemning 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 February 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 bullets 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 dictator 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

501

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 further 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 daughter 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 ABUSALAMOVICH (1966–2006) On June 17, 2006, agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and Kadyrovite 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 others 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) University 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

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 civilians (some tabulations top 100,000). It also changed Sadulayev’s life forever, 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 activity 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 citizenship 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 adjoining 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 murder of his wife—Sadulayev did his best to conduct the ongoing war on “civilized” 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 Umarov, proved less discriminating as he carried the battle to Russia, with incidents such as the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings (40 dead, 100 injured)

503

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, Kadyrovite 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 governing 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 heroic 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 Islamic 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

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 pronouncement undoubtedly sealed his fate in the minds of Islamic extremists. Sheikh Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawar succeeded Salim as president of the governing 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 agencies 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 Colombia, over the town of Leticia, in Colombia’s Amazonas Department. Seven months earlier, a “patriotic” band of Peruvians had seized the town, expelled

505

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 invasion. 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 Alliance (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 August 12, 1889, to parents of the Malagasy ethnic group from Madagascar. After completing basic education in his hometown, he enrolled at Lima’s Chorrillos 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 revolt 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 Peru’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

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 Peruvians, President Leguía had signed the Salomón–Lozano Treaty with Colombia 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 Democratic 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. Arrested with Sandino, despite Bautista’s promise of safe passage, were Sandino’s father, brother, two generals from his peasant army, and poet Sofonías Salvatierra (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 Sandino’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

507

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 reburied them at another location, still undisclosed to this day. Augusto Calderón Sandino was born out of wedlock at Niquinohomo, Nicaragua, on May 18, 1895. His mother, Margarita Calderón, was a servant in the home of wealthy landowner Gregorio Sandino, who impregnated 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 absorbed 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 murder ran out in 1926, Sandino Government troops killed Nicaraguan rebel leader went home to work in a gold Augusto Sandino in 1934. (Bettmann/Corbis) mine near the Honduran border. In March of that year, Emiliano Chamorro Vargas led a coup against President Carlos José Solórzano Gutiérrez and seized control of the country. Pressure from the United States doomed Chamorro’s regime, forcing his resignation 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 revolt, 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

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” National 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 engagements 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. Sandino’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 arsenal 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 Sandino 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, Sandino’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, repeal of the 1914 Bryan–Chamorro Treaty (granting the United States exclusive rights to dig a canal across Nicaragua), and free elections supervised by Latin American statesmen. American paranoia spiked as the U.S. Communist

509

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 AntiImperialist 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 Brazil 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 severing 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 election, in 1932, leaving only officers to advise the National Guard. Sandino returned 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. Marines 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 established 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 bankrupting Nicaragua by 1990. Still, Sandinista’s name and his message endure, resuscitated 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: Vantage 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

“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 unmarked 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 imperialism, 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, Madagascar. 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 autonomy 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.

511

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 target, on August 4, 1983, unseating Ouédraogo and installing Sankara as president 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 mineral wealth, vaccinated 2.5 million children against deadly diseases, planted more than 10 million trees to halt the spread of the Sahara Desert, while severing 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 encouraged them to stay in school if pregnant. Sankara’s reforms—coupled with his penchant for guitar playing and motorcycle riding—soon earned him the nickname of “Africa’s Che Guevara.” Inevitably, Sankara’s new programs made enemies. They included quasifeudal landlords stripped of property, tribal chiefs deprived of tribute payments and obligatory labor, corrupt officials driven from their public offices, and “lazy workers” held for trial before local revolutionary tribunals. An admirer of both Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, Sankara also challenged established 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 reversed the nationalization of land and natural resources, welcomed new investment 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 JeanBaptiste Boukary Lingani, then had both arrested and shot in September 1989,

S A R G S YA N , VA Z G E N

on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government. Subsequently, Compaoré 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 November 2005, Compaoré survived an army mutiny in April 2011 and shows no inclination 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 specialists in adaptive physical therapy, graduating in 1979. From there, he returned to Ararat, teaching physical education in a local school and leading the Communist 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 changing. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s introduction of Perestroika

513

514

S A R G S YA N , VA Z G E N

(“restructuring”) and Glasnost (“openness”) during 1986–1988 sparked political stirrings in Armenia, including demands for reunion with NagornoKarabakh, a region occupied by many Armenians and promised to Armenia by Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks in 1920, then made part of Azerbaijan instead. 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 ethnic rioting between Armenians and Azeris, quickly escalating into full-scale war. On May 5, 1990, a New Armenian army was created, operating independently 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 Internal Affairs and State Defense Committee. On September 21, 1991, Armenia 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, Sargsyan was recalled to Yerevan, named as Armenia’s new minister of defense. In 1996, Sargsyan crushed street demonstrations protesting the rigged reelection 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, receiving posthumous awards as a Hero of Artsakh (highest decoration from the selfproclaimed 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 supported 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

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. London: 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 Fatherland 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 GermanFrench immigrant parents, in Concepción, Chile. After studying at Santiago’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 abortive coup against President Eduardo Frei Montalva and was rewarded with appointment 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

515

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 attempts 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 payment of $50,000 each to Viaux and his chief accomplice for speedy resolution 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 murder, 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 convicted 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 documented, and Schneider’s family filed a lawsuit against former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger on September 10, 2001, charging him with conspiracy in General Viaux’s murder of Schneider. A federal court in Washington, 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

SELEUCUS I (350S BCE–281 BCE) By September 281 BCE, Macedonian general Seleucus was the last surviving 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 thenknown world. He had established the eponymous Seleucid Empire, sprawling over central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, 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 Chersonese (now the Gallipoli Peninsula), he was assassinated by Egyptian Ptolemy 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)

517

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, Lysimachus, and Perdiccas, all of whom would later claim to be his rightful successors. At the Battle of the Hydaspes, they defeated King Porus of the Hindu Paurava kingdom, but the seven-foot-tall monarch’s courage so impressed 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 Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II. Perdiccas succeeded him as regent of a conquered 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; Lysimachus governing Thrace; Antigonus supervising Greater Phrygia; Leonnatus ruling Lesser Phrygia; Eumenes of Cardia governing Cappadocia and Paphlagonia; Menander ruling Lydia; Philotas in charge of Cilicia; Ptolemy I Soter ruling 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 powerful 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 before 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 Antigonus, 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

charge of most Asian provinces formerly conquered by Alexander, except for Palestine and Phoenicia (annexed by Ptolemy while Seleucus was fighting 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 provinces 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, Lysimachus’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 Lysimachus, 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 murder of Seleucus. Antiochus I Soter succeeded his father as king of the Seleucid Empire, ruling 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 Raphia.” In A Companion to the Hellenistic World. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Bugh, Glenn. The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Grainger, John. Seleukos Nikator: Constructing a Hellenistic Kingdom. London: Routledge, 1990. Shipley, Graham. The Greek World after Alexander 323–30 BC. London: Routledge, 2000.

519

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 testimony 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 regime. 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 withdraw in her sophomore year, but she persevered to complete her exams independently 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 fledgling Cape Peninsula Students’ Union (CPSU), an affiliate of the antiapartheid Unity Movement of South Africa, in 1957. Three years later, she moved further 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, September 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 political activity, while requiring her to check in with local police on a daily basis. After completing that draconian probation period, September obtained a permanent 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 committee of the ANC’s Women’s Section, preparing a special report titled Children under Apartheid. She presented her findings that September, in Paris, at a

SEPTEMBER, DULCIE EVONNE

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 Albertini, detained in South Africa for his affiliation with the ANC. Prior to his release, 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 reportedly 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 impediment, 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.

521

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-activistis-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 insufficiently 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 following 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 presentday 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 devoted to protecting Shaka from cyclical famine, murder attempts by jealous rivals, and the danger of his own explosive temper. Among the Mthethwa people, under chief Dingiswayo, Shaka was initiated into an impi (military unit) of the Izichwe regiment, serving with courage and distinction for a decade. Dingiswayo had seized power by killing his brother, a method common among African tribes, as with some European 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

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 traditional 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 stragglers 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 addition 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 stragglers 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.

523

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 Zululand, 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 succeeded 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 Society.” 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

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: Penguin 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 additional 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 defendants 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 Sandhurst in 1936, and was commissioned as an officer of the Welsh Guards, serving 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, representing 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, influenced 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 estimate, 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.

525

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 particular, 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 prominent 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 Governor Sir Richard Sharples and the Related Killings. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. Ayton, Mel. Justice Denied: Bermuda’s Black Militants, the “Third Man,” and the Assassinations 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 northern Somalia, Prime Minister Abdirashid Ali Shermarke was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards. The gunman, standing watch outside a guest

SHERMARKE, ABDIRASHID ALI

house occupied by Shermarke, 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, installing 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 Somalia, 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 madrassas (Islamic schools) until age 17. Employed first as a trader, Shermarke subsequently 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 assembly. 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

527

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 intervention. 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 Shermarke, assumed office as prime minister of a hopeful transitional government in February 2009, then resigned in September 2010 after a long-running stalemate with parliament. Today, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency describes Somalia as “in the process of building a federated parliamentary republic” without 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 Istanbul) 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 revolution 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 captured 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

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 Empire’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 reactionary 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 Ottoman 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 influence. Government sought to modernize the empire’s communications and transportation networks, and Shevket helped that effort by promoting military aviation. Ethnic dissent among lawmakers, coupled with preparation for the First Balkan War, arrested that progress when parliament was close on August 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 Empire 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

529

530

SMITH, JOSEPH, JR.

position of influence—and was widely blamed for killing Nazim Pasha, ultimately 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 rebounded against him in February 1917, forcing his resignation and later sending 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 Armenians. 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. Hanio˘glu, M. S¸ükrü. 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 marshal obeyed. Two days later, an anti-Mormon paper, the Warsaw Signal, editorialized 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.

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 conversion. 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 priceless 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, Missouri. Unbelievers in the Show-Me State expelled Zion’s inhabitants two years later, with Smith himself tarred and feathered. From Independence, Smith embarked 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 banking 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

531

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 agitation 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 Mormons. 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 surrendered to state troops, with an agreement to forfeit their property and leave Missouri. 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 Nauvoo’s municipal charter, approving formation of an LDS militia led by “Lieutenant 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 adultery, 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 reputed Danite gunman Owen Porter Rockwell was charged with attempted murder, then acquitted at trial. (The crime remains officially unsolved.) Missouri sought to extradite Smith, but federal authorities deemed the writ unconstitutional. 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 independent 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 Aldrich, 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 although he denied it, Ford later expressed satisfaction with the Mormon exodus

SMITH, JOSEPH, JR.

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 Illinois, between church members and state militia during 1844–1845, followed the murders of Joseph Smith and his brother and claimed another 10 Mormon lives. The final Mormon War, in 1857–1858, arose from conflicts 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 “expect 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 Patriarch 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 Assassination of the First Mormon Prophet. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2005.

533

534

SOGDIANUS

SOGDIANUS (?–423 BCE) On January 10, 423 BCE, in his seventh month as Persia’s monarch, King Sogdianus was assassinated by Arbarios, a cavalry commander acting on orders from Ochus, the king’s younger half-brother. Sogdianus should not have been surprised, because he had gained the throne by sending assassins named Menostanes 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 described them in the 18th book of his History of the Persians (§§46–51). However, 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 Babylon, and Ochus was third in line, borne by another concubine, Cosmartidene of Babylon. At the death of Artaxerxes, Xerxes II succeeded him, ruling Persia (by Ctesias’s calculation) for a grand total of 45 days. Sogdianus and his cohorts reportedly 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 inaccurate 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 Persia 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 Parysatis, 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 rebelled 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

kill him at Colossae, in 359 BCE. The bitter queen is commemorated by asteroid 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 Anastasio 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 financial 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 automatic weapons, killing all three of the vehicle’s occupants. Subsequent reports 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 cannot 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 attending 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

535

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. (Shepard 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 ascended 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 natural 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 Montenegro Medrano and Vice President Lorenzo Guerrero Gutiérrez. Another pliable servant of the dynasty, Guerrero ceded the presidency to Anastasio Somoza 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 “liberals” 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

Fernando Bernabé Agüero Rocha. In fact, however, Somoza Debayle continued to manipulate the temporary regime, and resumed the presidency on December 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 declared 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 organizations condemned Somoza’s repressive measures, and support for Sandinista 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 former officers of Somoza’s National Guard—popularly known as Contras—to destabilize the government. Perhaps predictably, the Contras employed tactics 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 Congress 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

537

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 attempting 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. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2007. Morley, Morris. Washington, Somoza and the Sandinistas: State and Regime in US Policy toward 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 regime. 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 February 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

of Business Administration (established in 1865 as Union Business College, now simply Pierce College). While there, he also met his future wife, Salvadora 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 commander 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 opposing 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 amnesty offer to rebel leader Augusto Sandino, an agrarian reformer and bitter adversary 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 January 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 dissent. 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. Multiple parties existed on paper, but election fraud and brazen intimidation placed Somoza’s Nationalist Liberal Party in firm control of the state, and Somoza 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 Nicaragua’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 successor President Harry Truman felt differently pressuring Somoza to decline

539

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-yeaarold 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 deposed Argüello on May 26, replacing him with Benjamín Lacayo Sacasa, another 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 followed 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 Nicaraguan constitution once again, in 1955, permitting himself to seek another presidential term without employing stand-ins. By that time, he had also founded a merchant marine company and Líneas Aéreas de Nicaragua, Nicaragua’s national airline. While milking profits from those enterprises, he built a new container port near Managua, predictably named after himself. His assassination failed to break the dynasty Somoza had established, as he was succeeded 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 government issued Decree No. 825, naming López as a National Hero. In 2006, a monument dedicated to López was erected in Managua. Somoza’s name, meanwhile, 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. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2007. Lake, Anthony. Somoza Falling: A Case Study of Washington at Work. Amherst, MA: University 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

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 Dictatorships. 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 Agrarian 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 authorities as the country’s leading antimonarchist in parliament. He opposed Bulgaria’s entry to World War I in 1914, prompting other members of parliament to challenge his patriotism. When asked if he was a loyal Bulgarian, Stamboliyski replied, “I am a Yugoslav!” He subsequently confronted Tsar Ferdinand 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 unrest epidemic in the ranks of Bulgarian soldiers, Tsar Ferdinand released Stamboliyski 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 provisional 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.

541

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 signing the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, which ceded western Thrace, southern Dobruja, 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 million 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 Stamboliyski 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. Communists 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 country 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

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 Stambolov’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 daggers. 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, Stambolov 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 Levski’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, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy—mapped a plan for Bulgarian independence. 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 Bulgarian 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 Rumelia and Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II recognized Prince Alexander as governor-general.

543

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 September 1. Bulgaria’s two leaders clashed almost immediately. Stambolov’s nationalism drove him to oppose Ferdinand’s bid for ever-expanding power, while behaving 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 plotting 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 resigned 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 attempting to seize the corpse. Ferdinand sought to improve relations with Russia, 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. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993.

STEUNENBERG, FRANK (1861–1905) On the evening of December 30, 1905, ex-governor Frank Steunenberg approached 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

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 attended Iowa State College, and upon graduation found work as a printer’s apprentice. He worked at the Des Moines Register in 1881, then moved on to publish a newspaper in tiny Knoxville, Iowa, remaining there until 1886. During 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” candidate with support from both the Democratic and Populist Parties, Steunenberg won election as Idaho’s fourth governor. After a relatively uneventful two-year term, Steunenberg was reelected by the same coalition in November 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 dividends. 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 SpanishAmerican War. Accordingly, he asked President William McKinley for federal troops, a move viewed as rank betrayal by his union and Populist supporters. Soldiers arrested hundreds of miners, cramming them into open-air “bull pens” with minimal sanitary facilities. Martial law remained in effect for the

545

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 investigated by James McParland, a private operative of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency who had played a key role in prosecuting “Molly Maguire” 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 confession, 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 complexion.” 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.” Threatened with prosecution in an unrelated murder case, Adams agreed to testify, 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, liberated 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, continued his involvement in “radical” labor activity. He was a founder and leader

STEUNENBERG, FRANK

COEUR D’ALENE “DYNAMITE EXPRESS” On April 29, 1899, in the midst of an ongoing strike, some 250 members 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 accidentally shot by fellow strikers. Reboarding their “Dynamite Express,” the raiders rolled on through Kellog and Wallace, greeted by prounion crowds along the track, who cheered as they passed. That incident 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 hundreds 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. involvement 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.

547

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 Scotland. They discussed the Catholic rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I of England, 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 Stewart proceeded toward Edinburgh on January 23. That day, entering the town of Linlithgow on horseback, Steward passed the home of John Hamilton, archbishop 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 illegitimate 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 existing 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 Commendator of St. Andrews, a quasiecclesiastical post that supported Stewart for the remainder of his life. James V died on December 14, 1542, succeeded by his only legitimate child, six-dayold 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 derebels 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

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 sowing 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 Darnaway Castle, southwest of Forres. In October 1562, when George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly, led a revolt against Mary, Stewart defeated him at the Battle of Corrichie, near Aberdeen. He opposed Mary’s marriage to Henry Stewart 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 Langside, 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 Scotland, 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.

549

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 pursuers 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 honorable man should slay his own enemies, but not kill on behalf of others. Hamilton remained in France and died there, unpunished, in 1581. Meanwhile, 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 Lothian History and Amenity Society, 1975. Ives, Edward. The Bonny Earl of Murray: The Man, the Murder, the Ballad. Urbana: University 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 Scotland. 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 island’s principal settlement. As ruler of the island and its religious colony, a splinter 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. Instead, he carried them aboard the Michigan to Mackinac Island, where they were

STRANG, JAMES JESSE

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 baptized 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 martyred prophet’s shoes. Brigham Young had other ideas, rallying support in Nauvoo and leading the Mormon Exodus westward to Utah, whereupon Strang defected to form his own Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Strangite), casting himself as the sole legitimate heir to Smith’s legacy. A “letter of appointment,” 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 divine 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.

551

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 Island 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 Mavericks: 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 legend. 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

includes an appendix by a priest called Laurentius listing Christian Swedish 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 Östergötland 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 married 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 himself challenged as king by Erik Jedvardsson of Västergötland. Another rival, deemed less dangerous perhaps, was Danish lord Magnus Henriksson, greatgrandson 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 presents 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.

553

This page intentionally left blank

T TAKAHASHI KOREKIYO (1854–1936) On February 26, 1936, pursuing the ideal of a “Showa Restoration” proposed 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 Saito¯ Makoto, former Keeper of the Privy Seal Makino Nobuaki, Inspector General of Military Education Watanabe Jo¯taro¯, and Finance Minister Takahashi Korekiyo. Before loyal troops suppressed the uprising on February 29, Saito¯, Takahashi, and Watanabe were dead. The prime minister escaped through a fluke of mistaken identity, when the rebels shot his brotherin-law, Captain Matsuo Denzo¯. 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 capital 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 Kaishu¯. 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 Kyo¯ritsu Gakko¯ (now Kasei) High School, progressing from there to serve in the ministry of education, then the ministry of agriculture and commerce. Within the latter department, he was soon promoted to First Chief of the Bureau of Patents, 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 Yokohama Specie Bank (now the Bank of Tokyo, Ltd.) in 1906. A year later, Emperor 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 Gonnohyo¯e chose him as minister of finance from the Rikken Seiyu¯kai (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). Following Prime Minister Hara’s assassination in Tokyo, in November 1921, Takahashi filled the vacant office while doubling as president of the Rikken Seiyu¯kai. 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 Kato¯ 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

commerce. Before leaving office—and the Rikken Seiyu¯kai—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 (December 1931 to May 1932), Saito¯ 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 military had attempted other coups. Eleven naval officers assassinated Prime Minister 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 another coup. Sparse evidence prevented criminal convictions, but the leaders were suspended, and the cadets were expelled. Nine months later, Lieutenant Colonel Aizawa Saburo¯ 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-sho¯ (Grand Cordon of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum), comparable to Britain’s Order of the Garter. He was succeeded as minister of finance by Machida Chu¯ji, former minister of commerce 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.

557

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, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries” in their “struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism and all forms of foreign aggression, 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 General Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy, Captain Sherjan Mazdoryar, and Air Force Commander Assadullah Sarwari. Amin arrived with Major Sayed Daoud Tarum, 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 reported that he had died from illness. Nur Muhammad Taraki was born at Ghazni, Afghanistan, to a Pashtun peasant 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 numbers 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. Fifteen thousand angry mourners staged a demonstration at his funeral, prompting a crackdown by President Daoud on PDPA leaders. On April 28, Taraki and Hafizullah Amin led a coup d’état—commonly called the Saur Revolution, 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

Taraki’s presidency was fraught with controversy from its beginning, marked by a purge of PDPA officers whom he regarded as prospective rivals. His program 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 traditional 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 Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, declaring its curriculum “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 domestic programs too radical, rejecting his plea for “practical and technical assistance 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

559

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 blasphemy. Investigators linked Qadri to Dawat-i-Islami, described in media reports as the world’s largest nonpolitical Muslim organization with members in more than 150 countries. Admirers of Qadri rallied outside Rawalpindi’s AntiTerrorism Court before his trial, showering the gunman with rose petals. Despite 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 peasants, 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. Taseer’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 accounting 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 active in the party for the remainder of his life, serving as its information secretary 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 homeland’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 journalist 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 Punjab’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 career. In 1994, he founded First Capital Securities Corporation, a full-service

TA S E E R , S A L M A A N

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 network of public pay telephones, later expanding into a major media company with broadband wireless, cable television, and other services. Oman Telecommunications 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 Englishlanguage 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 Lieutenant General Khalid Maqbool Vohra. Already unpopular with conservative Muslims, Taseer sparked controversy in June 2009, when Asia Bibi—a Christian woman living in the Sheikhupura District—was sentenced to death for blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed. Taseer joined Minister for Minorities Affairs Clement Shahbaz Bhatti in condemning that sentence and the statute itself, passed by the National Assembly in 1986. Both men received death threats, and Taseer reportedly left Pakistan briefly in December 2010, prompting Punjab Assembly Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan to call for his removal 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 January 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 flowers, 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.

561

562

T I S Z A D E B O R O S J E N O˝ 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 shortlived Hungarian Democratic Republic, placing the nation under communist rule until March 1, 1920. István Tisza de Borosjen˝o et Szeged was born in Pest, Hungary (the eastern part of present-day Budapest), on April 22, 1861. His father, Count Kálmán Tisza de Borosjeno, ˝ 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 winning 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 supporting restriction of suffrage to the wealthiest 10 percent of Hungary’s population. 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 illadvised attempt to muzzle opposition spokesmen by amending rules of parliamentary procedure, an overreaching that prompted high-level defections from the Liberal Party. Still a member of parliament, Tisza founded a new Nemzeti Munkapárt (National 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 O˝ E T S Z E G E D , I S T V Á N

“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 Ferdinand’s murder, Tisza had opposed Serbian demands for independence from Austria-Hungary, but after the slaying he argued against military action, fearing 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 minorities. 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 attempt 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 assassination, but professed itself unable to identify the killers. Tisza’s family encountered no such difficulty once the communist regime collapsed, naming the men responsible as Sándor Hüttner, Pál Kéri, József Pogány, Tivadar Horváth 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 assassination, 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

563

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 Department. In July 1927, Pepper was elected to head the Presidium of the Comintern’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 Supreme 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. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971.

TJIBAOU, JEAN-MARIE (1936–1989) On May 4, 1989, Jean-Marie Tjibaou, leader of New Caledonia’s Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), visited Ouvéa with his chief lieutenant, 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, indigenous Melanesian inhabitants of an archipelago east of Australia, including Grand Terre, Belep, the Isle of Pines, and the six Loyalty Islands. After education 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 Caledonia’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

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 University 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 Administration 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 discrimination against indigenous natives as a means of frustrating communist agitation among them. In September 1975, Tjibaou organized the first Melanesian arts festival, dubbed Melanesia 2000, despite opposition from the Frenchdominated 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

565

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 independence. 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, petitioning 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 executed after the assault. A month later, Tjibaou proposed a referendum to decide the issue of independence, 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 autonomy to the island. Under terms of the accord, if the president of New Caledonia’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 .

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 Dependency. 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 Biography. 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 presidential palace in Monrovia, the rebels killed Tolbert and 27 others, dumping their corpses together in a mass grave nearby. Mobs of angry Liberians gathered 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 personally. 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 grandson 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 American 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 largest 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 minister and relative of American “Underground Railway” heroine Harriet Tubman. In 1965, Tolbert became the first African to serve as president of the Baptist World Alliance. President Tubman died in a London hospital on July 23, 1971, whereupon Tolbert succeeded him.

567

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 relief, 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 judicial branches in a virtual dictatorship. President Tolbert did permit creation of the country’s first opposition party since 1878, but he still won reelection 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 protests 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 paradoxically 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 recognition 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 government 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 Liberia (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 property 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 executed 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

Yemen—“for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’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 Struggles in the Tubman and Tolbert Administrations From, 1944–1975. Lanham, MD: University 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 Security 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 (FROLINAT) to escape from their custody. On April 13, a band of gendarmerie soldiers 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 Prefecture of southern Chad, on June 15, 1918. He was a member of the Sara (or kameeni) 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 administrators made no effort to unify or modernize the territory, seemingly satisfied to a vague semblance of law and order. By the time Chadian lieutenant governor 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,

569

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 resigned, 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 democratic institutions, coupled with political isolation of Muslims in Chad. Tombalbaye 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 September 1963. At the same time, he created a special court to try real and imagined 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 native 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 “Africanization” 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 animists. Riots in Guéra Prefecture, populated chiefly by Arabs and related Hadjerai 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 various reforms, including liberation of political prisoners, repeal of various arbitrary 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 dictator 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

the cross-border raiding continued. At home, facing a catastrophic drought and student protests, Tombalbaye rescinded his amnesty for political prisoners, 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, replacing 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 missionaries, and required all non-Muslim males between the ages of 16 and 50 to undergo traditional animist initiation rites (yondo) before obtaining promotion 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 exports 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 sorcery” 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 subsequently 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 expresident, including a home, two chauffeured cars, and a monthly stipend 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 arrest on June 12, 2009, at the American Hospital in Paris, France.

571

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 National Assembly. Ironically, because Malloum was also a member of the Sara ethnic group, his ascension changed little in terms of Tombalbaye’s governing 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 visited exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky at his home in the Coyoacán borough of Mexico City. Posing as a Canadian called “Frank Jackson,” Mercader 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

organize the South Russian Workers’ Union. Arrested with 200 other members in January 1898, Bronshtein spent two years in custody awaiting trial, but was not idle in the meantime. In jail, he studied philosophy, married fellow Marxist Aleksandra Sokolovskaya, and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP). At trial in 1900, Bronshtein was sentenced to four years exile in Siberia. Bronshtein escaped from Siberia 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 initially 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 Mensheviks (“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

573

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 Social Democratic Party of Austria and made occasional forays into neighboring Germany. Between October 1908 and April 1912, with fellow revolutionaries, 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 Balkans as a war correspondent nine months later. Back in Vienna by August 1914, when Austria-Hungary went to war with Russia, Trotsky fled to Switzerland, 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 opposition to the war; Spain in turn deported him to the United States on Christmas 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 Canada, then released on April 29. June saw him elected to the first All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, 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 Government led by Alexander Kerensky. Kerensky, in turn, was unseated by Lenin’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 Commissar 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

Trotsky over Trotsky’s plan to create a “new regime” of militant trade unions, climaxed 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, including 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 socialism. 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 Committee, forerunner of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, describing Soviet secret police harassment of his family and friends. The American Communist Party retaliated by branding him an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation 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 Vidale staged a raid on Trotsky’s home, shooting his grandson in the foot and abducting a bodyguard, Robert Harte, whom they murdered. The second attempt, 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, receiving 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 honored 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.

575

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 instantly, 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 Service, 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 Sadhalá, 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 married 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

Amidst those romantic entanglements, in 1919, Trujillo joined the National Guard, training with U.S. Marines who then occupied the Dominican Republic. 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 agreement 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 parties except his own, the Dominican Party. Adult citizens were strong-armed into joining the party, made subject to immediate arrest for vagrancy if they appeared in public without a membership card. Government employees, meanwhile, 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 Trujillo!” 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 successor, 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 presidentin-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 Intelligence 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 presumed 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

577

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 severely strained the president’s relations with the United States and the Catholic Church. In terms of foreign policy, Trujillo supported Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista 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 secured him passage to Portugal. Castro retaliated by landing several small raiding 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, collecting 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 Trujillo’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 involvement 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 allegedly hanged himself in jail on January 7, 1957, but analysts from the Federal 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 prisoner 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 removing 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 ensuing 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

“PARSLEY MASSACRE” On October 2, 1937, President Rafael Trujillo ordered the eradication of Haitian immigrants living in districts of the Dominican Republic that bordered Haiti. To explain the order, Trujillo said, “I have traveled and traversed 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 enjoying 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 executed if their accents indicated they spoke French or Haitian Creole. Trujillo tried to blame the murders on Dominican civilians, but U.S. observers 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 presidency passed instead to Joaquín Balaguer. Presumed Trujillo loyalists shot Imbert 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: Macmillan, 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.

579

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 indicate 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.

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 affairs. 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 occasions, 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 Collazo 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 homeland’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 registered 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 Officer Leslie Coffelt of the White House Police Force (now the Uniformed Division 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 gunfire, 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 Collazo 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 parental compromise to please grandfathers Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. Drawn to politics early, Truman served as a page at the 1900 Democratic National Convention in Kansas City, a year before he graduated from high school. Poor eyesight foiled his childhood dream of attending West Point,

581

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 captain 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 political 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 Truman 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 Missouri’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 promoted 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.

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 reporters, “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 insisting that Truman saved at least 250,000 U.S. lives, and others brand the bombings 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 upheavals, a new postwar “Red Scare” with critics who branded him “soft on communism,” 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 Wallace into a new Progressive Party, and Southern racists defected to Strom Thurman’s “Dixiecrat” movement. Pundits predicted Truman’s defeat by Republican contender Thomas Dewey—and the Chicago Tribune famously printed electioneve 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, confronted the Korean War and rebellious General Douglas MacArthur, fended off attacks Senator Joseph McCarthy and other congressional Red hunters, endured criticism of “losing” China to Mao Zedong’s communists, and haphazardly 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!”

583

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 Truman’s health. He died on December 26, 1972, after three weeks’ hospitalization 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 University 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 ¯B (586/590–644) UMAR IBN AL-KHATTA In October 644, Umar ibn Al-Khatta¯b—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 rejected 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 religious pronouncements before he succumbed to his wounds. Umar ibn Al-Khatta¯b 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, Khatta¯b 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 literature 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 Khatta¯b ibn Nufayl despised the new religion and Umar initially joined Khatta¯b in persecuting Muslims. Umar reportedly hatched a plot to kill Muhammad, but Muhammad foiled the conspiracy by ordering his hundredodd 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 Muhammad, 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

¯B U M A R I B N A L- K H AT TA

new faith in 616 and began to preach its tenets around Mecca, in defiance of his hostile tribal chief, Amr ibn Hisha¯m. 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-inlaw—chosen as the first caliph (Muslim chief of state). A rift at once developed, 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 Yamamah, 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 Persia’s Sassanid Empire, including the Battle of al-Qa¯disiyyah (November 636), the Battle of Jalula (April 637), and the Battle of Naha¯vand (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 Persia’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 imposed by Christians that prevented Jews from entering Jerusalem.

¯B U M A R I B N A L - K H AT TA

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), SahibBait-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 display 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. Uthman 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 alKhattab. Skokie, IL: The Qur’an Society, 1999. Madelung, Wilferd. The Succession to Muhammad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

587

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: International 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 competition. 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 soldiers in Milan, during the BavaBeccaris massacre of May 1898. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Bresci was the first European regicide to escape execution. Italy had abolished capital punishment 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 Ranieri 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 Emmanuel II—was the king of Sardina, married to Archduchess Adelaide of Austria. As a child, Umberto was educated by tuKing 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

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. Although 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, however, 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 himself 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 Montelupo Fiorentino in 1899, he survived there until February 1910. Passannante’s attack on Umberto was no aberration. In both foreign and domestic policy, the king seemed to do everything within his power to alienate and inflame left-of-center opponents. In 1882, ignoring the sentiments of Italians 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, transforming 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 kingdom’s trading concession at Tientsin (now Tianjin), granted by the Chinese government in September 1901.

589

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 anarchist 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-yearold unemployed ironsmith Pietro Acciarito tried to stab Umberto at a horse race held in honor of the monarch’s 29th wedding anniversary. In custody, Acciarito 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 accomplices, 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 Montelupo 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 bakeries, Umberto declared martial law in Milan, assigning General Fiorenzo BavaBeccaris to deal with protesters as he saw fit. The resulting massacre, including artillery fire, officially claimed 118 lives while leaving 450 wounded. Other accounts 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 anarchist 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 traveled 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 Czolgosz claimed that Bresci’s murder of Umberto had inspired his own assassination 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 abolished 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

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 Radicalism: Politics, Labor, and Culture. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. Ciancabilla, Giuesppe. Fired by the Ideal: Italian-American Anarchist Responses to Czolgosz’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 Assassinations 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 morning broadcast, but members of the presidential guard refused to let them enter the property bearing weapons. After a tense stand-off, the UN soldiers surrendered their arms, then were killed, their bodies grossly mutilated. Uwilingiyimana’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 number of Rwandan civilians, but acquitted him of Uwilingiyimana’s murder, imposing 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 southern 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.

591

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, Uwilingiyimana 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 traditionalists 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 Cooperative 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 education. 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 Rwanda’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 contentious 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 membership 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 Accords 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 Uwilingiyimana, 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

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 Twagiramungu 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. Twagiramungu, 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 former rulers from the Tutsi minority, exacerbated by the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s 1990 invasion from Uganda and the resulting civil war. The assassinations 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 killing than firearms. An International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, established in November 199¬4, heard testimony from Rwandan prime minister Jean Kambanda that mass murder of Tutsis was openly discussed in cabinet meetings, then carried out by high-ranking army officers. Scheduled to complete its work in December 2014, the tribunal had 50 trials and convicted 29 defendants as this volume went to press, with 11 more trials in progress, 14 defendants awaiting trial, and 13 others still at large.

593

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 University 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 officially unsolved, still under active investigation by agents of Zásahová skupina Úradu boja proti organizovanej kriminalite Prezídia Policajného zboru (the Engagement 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 University 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 Alexander Dubˇcek’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 Revolution” 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 unopposed 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, Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved in a “Velvet Divorce,” with Havel chosen as president of the new Czech Republic, and voters in the Slovak Republic elected President Michal Kováˇc. 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 constitutional 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 during World War II. Valko fought Slovak attorney Ernest Valko, killed by unidenti- that case all the way to the Eufied 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 lucrative 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 company Lemikon Limited, seeking a payout of 66 million euros ($88.5 million). Aside from private litigation, Valko also served as an arbiter at the Arbitration 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 member 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 harmonize 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

Slovak Electric Power (2003–2010). Somewhere within Valko’s public or private connections, presumably, lay the roots of his murder. Investigators noted that in November 2006, police charged Valko and financier 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 ˇ blamed Valko’s death on an without trial, in 2008. The newspaper Nový Cas 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 Ukrainian suspect “Oleg T.,” said to reside and work for underworld boss Ivan Miskov, 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 Hrbáˇcek and Martin Lieskovský. The SIS is a Slovakian intelligence agency, established in January 1993 as a descendant of Czechoslovakia’s defunct Federal Security Information Service. In 1995, its agents kidnapped and “lightly” tortured the son of President Michal Kováˇc, 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. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Shepherd, Robin. Czechoslovakia: The Velvet Revolution and Beyond. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Wheaton, Bernard, and Zdeneˇ k 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 Czechoslovakia 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 Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit opened a package at his home in Mountain Brook Alabama. A bomb inside the parcel detonated, killing Vance and gravely injuring 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

597

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 investigation 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 Alabama’s culture of white supremacy, Vance found himself in sympathy with African 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 legislature districts must be roughly equal in population to avoid racial bias. Despite that stance, unpopular with many Alabama whites, Vance was elected chairman 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 lecturer 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 racist 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

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 Company of Jacksonville, and Judge Vance had dismissed O’Ferrell’s claim. While O’Ferrell was still under scrutiny, the case moved in yet another direction. 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 resident Walter Leroy Moody Jr. had been arrested after a homemade bomb exploded 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 included 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 members 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 subsequently 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 Supreme 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 Supervisory 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 circumvented standard procedures, specifically bypassing mandatory analysis of

599

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 explosives used in the bombs. Whitehurst also accused Thurman and Martz of fabricating 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 Laboratory, as well as Thurman, Martz, Freeh, and Shapiro, but conspiracy theorists 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 explosive 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 Johnathon, 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 members. Other legislators administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation to Verwoerd before an ambulance arrived, but he was declared dead on arrival at Groote

VERWOERD, HENDRIK FRENSCH

Schuur Hospital. In custody, Tsafendas told police that he killed Verwoerd because 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 received 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 Applied Psychology at his alma mater, Stellenbosch University, advancing professor of sociology and social work in 1934. Two years later, he led a deputation 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 racist newspaper, Die Transvaler. A Supreme Court judgment subsequently found as fact that Die Transvaler, with Verwoerd’s knowledge and collaboration, An opponent of apartheid assassinated South Afoperated as an organ of the Ger- rican prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd. (Getty man Nazi Party in South Africa. Images)

601

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 segregated 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 Building 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 public 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 tenure 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 Exposition 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 Pretoria 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 detention 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 Resolution 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

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 persons and wounding 180 more. Those gunned down—many shot in the back as they fled—included 39 women and 29 children. Police subsequently blamed the shooting on panic among “young and inexperienced” officers, but testimony offered before South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation 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 suspended 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 military 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 bloodstained 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.

603

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 lunatic asylums. Released in 1867, he emigrated to Australia and lived an apparently normal life there until his death, in April 1900. The first attempt on Victoria’s life produced an outpouring of public support 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 Francis 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

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 insanity, Pate sought leniency by claiming he had suffered “a momentary lapse caused by a weak mind.” Convicted and transported to Tasmania for a sevenyear term, he later returned to London and died there in 1895. Britain’s Irish “troubles” prompted the next attack on Queen Victoria, on February 29, 1872. The assailant, 17-year-old youth Arthur O’Connor, accosted Victoria outside Buckingham Palace, brandishing a pistol and demanding freedom 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, because 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

605

606

VIEIR A, JOÃO “NINO” BERNARDO

two Irish-American suspects—Thomas Callan and Michael Harkins—were arrested 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 deceased 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, granddaughter 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. Momentous events of her long reign include the Irish potato famine (1844), establishment 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), expanding 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 & Nicolson, 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

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 pathologist, 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 belonged 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 Cabral, 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 political 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 September 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

607

608

VIEIR A, JOÃO “NINO” BERNARDO

the party’s Cape Verdean branch was reborn as the African Party for the Independence 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 chairman of the Council of the Revolution to chairman of the Council of State. Already 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 Colombian cocaine. Outside observers recognized the “well-known secret” that Vieira 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 dismissed Army Chief of Staff Ansumane Mané on June 6, based on allegations that Mané had smuggled weapons to rebel separatists in Senegal. Mané’s supporters 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 acting 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 admirers 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 participation in a field of 13 candidates. As before, the first round of voting on June 19

VIEIRA, JOÃO “NINO” BERNARDO

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 Vieira 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 GuineaBissau. 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 November 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 assassination 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. August 2009 brought speculation from South America that Colombia’s Medellín cocaine cartel, then led by Pedro Juan Morena Villa, had orchestrated the murders 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 GuineaBissau.” 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 Informal Power: Big Men and Networks. London: Zed Books, 2012.

609

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 traveled 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 bodyguards 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 pumpkinseed vendor shouted, “Viva Villa!” Responding to that prearranged signal, seven snipers fired on the Dodge, killing everyone inside the car except Contreras, 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 sharecropping peasants. The eldest of five children, he received some education from a local Catholic 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 ofshot in an ambush in July 1923. (Hulton-Deutsch fense. Luckily, the “fence” who bought his rustled livestock Collection/CORBIS)

V I L L A , F R A N C I S C O “ PA N C H O ”

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 officer 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 Ciudad 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 joining 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 Venustiano 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 efforts 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 Chihuahua, 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 taxation with reams of paper currency he printed himself, compelling its acceptance 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.

611

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 Commanding 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 Álvaro 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 Zacatecas, Villa fought Obregón again on June 1, fielding 25,500 men against Obregón’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 unable 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, Chihuahua, executing 16 U.S. employees of the American Smelting and Refining 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 southwestern 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 civilians, 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 Lieutenant 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 Pershing 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 ”

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 Felipe 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 intent 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 likewise 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 opposite vampires in a 2000 horror film, From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter. In the third season of Spike TV’s Deadliest Warrior series, Villa was pitted against Sioux war chief Crazy Horse, emerging triumphant in hand-to-hand combat.

613

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 Revolution. London: Verso, 2009. Tuck, Jim. Pancho Villa and John Reed: Two Faces of Romantic Revolution. Tucson: University 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 Villarroel’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 Cochabamba 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, believed 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 twothirds 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 reforms within Bolivian society, part of the Generación del Chaco that rejected his

VILLARROEL LÓPEZ, GUALBERTO

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 “Military Socialism” aimed at lifting Bolivia out of its postwar economic depression. A primary target was Standard Oil, accused of smuggling Bolivian oil into Argentina for sale. In March 1937, Toro’s regime nationalized the company’s Bolivian holdings, and although that move was popular with Bolivia’s workers, they were less pleased by Toro’s adoption of trapping resembling fascist governments 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 constitutional 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 Organization”) 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 Arguedas 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. Frightened 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 Bolivia’s large mining interests, President Peñaranda soon saw his popularity wane with both the nation’s lower classes and among military officers led by Villarroel, 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 Peñaranda decamped for Spain. Within his limits as a Latin American military officer, Villarroel was committed to reform. He recognized labor unions and supported pensions for retired 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

615

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 Assembly 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 between conservative interests financed by rich mine owners, and workers inclined 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 Villarroel’s national police—was captured on July 26, attempting to flee the country disguised as an Indian. In custody, he confessed to kidnapping Mauricio Hochschild, a wealthy Argentine industrialist held for ransom in Bolivia during August 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 admirers 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 Bolivia. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010.

VOM RATH, ERNST EDUARD (1909–1938) On November 7, 1938, Herschel Feibel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew whose family 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

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 parties, 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 German 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 financial 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 “spontaneous” 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, antiJewish riots erupted across Germany and parts of Austria (annexed by Germany 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 banning 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 theories 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

617

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 policeman 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 bypassed 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 “treatment 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 Magnus. The pair spent half an hour alone with vom Rath on November 8 and pronounced 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 journalist 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 benefit? 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 experiments conducted on prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, which ultimately placed him on trial for his life in December 1946, charged with 22 codefendants in the case titled United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al. That “doctor’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

crimes against humanity; nine more defendants were sentenced to prison, and seven were acquitted. Before he was hanged, on June 2, 1948, Dr. Brandt defended 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 Publishers, 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.

619

This page intentionally left blank

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. Although Wallace was named after his father and grandfather, his parents disliked the suffix “Junior” and distinguished him from his forebears by calling him “George C.” In time, his own son—technically named George Corley Wallace 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 outstanding 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 University 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 became 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 McQueen. May 1946 saw Wallace elected to the lower house of the state legislature, 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 Convention, 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 “Mister,” 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 Wallace to complain that “They outniggered me. I’ll never be outniggered again.” True to his word, Wallace actively recruited Klan support for his next gubernatorial 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, telling 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, segregation forever!”

WA L L A C E , G E O R G E C O R L E Y, J R .

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, Albert 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 failures, 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 primary vote, reaching the Democratic National Convention with 672,984 electors 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 governor. 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 alliance 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 retired Air Force General Curtis LeMay as his running mate. (Wallace had first considered ex-Kentucky governor Albert “Happy” Chandler for vice president, but dropped him when reminded that Chandler, while commissioner of baseball, had integrated the Major League by hiring black player Jackie Robinson in 1946.)

623

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 program 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 demonstrators 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, running 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 McGovern 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 quitting 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: Nashville, 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

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. Montgomery, 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 December 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. Assignments 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, moving 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 actions sparked protests before the European Commission of Human Rights from

625

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 Technical 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 Committee, after its chairman, Senator Frank Church of Idaho—held extensive hearings 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 embarrassing 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

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 appellate 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 accused 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 “strategy of tension,” accomplished by framing leftist groups for crimes they did not commit. Although acknowledging the existence of Operation Gladio, a “staybehind” 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 Saddam 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 Deputy 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.

627

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 LabemStará Boleslav on September 28. Unknown to Wenceslaus, Boleslaus had conspired with other Bohemian nobles to assassinate his brother at the banquet. ˇ The deed was carried out by three accomplices remembered only as Csta, Hnˇevsa, 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 Bohemia under the Pˇremyslid 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 Drahomíra, and whereas some accounts claim she tried to lure Wenceslaus from Christianity back to paganism, most histories describe the new duke as an ardent 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

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 Boˇrivoj 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 Kouˇrim 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 beatification, 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 Wenceslaus’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 Bohemia 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 Wenceslaus 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 Hungary’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.

629

630

WILLIAM I, PRINCE OF OR ANGE

Collins, Ace. Stories behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001. Panek, Jaroslav, and Oldrich Tuma, eds. A History of the Czech Lands. Chicago: Karolinum 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, conspiring 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 pistol 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 Nassausin in 1584. (Getty Images) Dillengurg, becoming Prince of

WILLIAM I, PRINCE OF ORANGE

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 education 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 FrancheComté, in Burgundy. Although William’s relationship with Philip seemed outwardly cordial, and he never directly attacked the king, William gradually allied himself with Dutch nationalist spokesmen including Philip de Montmorency, Count of Horn, and Lamoral, Count of Egmont. Raised first as a Lutheran, then as a Catholic, William advocated freedom of religion and resented 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 monarchs 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 Beeldenstorm (“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 Beeldenstorm rebels. William of Orange was among some 10,000 summoned to testify before that tribunal, but he declined to appear, whereupon Alba declared him an outlaw and confiscated his Dutch estates. That action propelled William 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, including French Huguenots and German mercenaries who engaged Alba’s forces in combat. Brother Louis was a leader of the latter army, invading the northern

631

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 another 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 expectations 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 southward, 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 Catholicism 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

Spain dragged on. Peace negotiations failed in 1575, but rebel prospects improved 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 townsfolk. 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 September 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 district 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 independence of the Dutch Low Countries from Spain. William welcomed the Duke of Anjou to Vlissingen in February 1582, and Spanish gunman Juan de Jáuregui 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 soldiers. 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

633

634

WILLIAM II OF ENGLAND

William, succeeded him as Prince of Orange, and the fight for Dutch independence 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 Scotland 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. Cambridge: 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 historian William of Malmesbury, in his Chronicle of the Kings of England, written circa 1128, offers the following account of William’s death—disputed as fanciful 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 suddenly 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

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 Winchester . . . 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 accident, 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 complexion—was the third son of King William I, also known as William the Conqueror (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 number 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 William the Conqueror as king, but familial conflict hurt his case. English chronicler 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 Robert’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

635

636

WILLIAM II OF ENGLAND

almost instantly regretted his selection as they wrangled over Anselmo’s support 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 certain 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 estates 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, William erected Carlisle Castle in Cumbria, frustrating Scottish claims to Cumberland and Westmorland. Malcolm retaliated by invading Northumbria, but that campaign proved fatal. Both Malcolm and his eldest son, Edward, suffered fatal wounds at the Battle of Alnwick, on November 13, 1093. Malcolm’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.

Mason, Emma. King Rufus: The Life & Murder of William II of England. Stroud, Gloucestershire, 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. District 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 collected 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 Revolution against Mexico, founder of both Rockport and the town of Woodsboro. A second-generation lawyer, Wood received a bachelor of business administration 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, President 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 Maximum 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 imprisonment without parole if convicted at trial. One of Wood’s law clerks allegedly

637

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 attitude, Chagra reportedly decided to kill Wood, instead. Authorities did not immediately link Jamiel Chagra to Wood’s assassination. 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 visiting room at Leavenworth Federal Prison. (Although Joe Chagra was a lawyer, he was not his brother’s attorney, and a court found that recording conversations between blood relatives did not violate attorney–client privilege.) Despite those tapes, jurors at his murder trial acquitted Jimmy Chagra of ordering Wood’s assassination when brother Joe refused to testify against him. A separate 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 convicted 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 incarcerated wife. The court imposed a life sentence on those charges, but declining health resulted in Chagra’s release from custody December 9, 2003. Some accounts 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 murder trial, Joe Chagra testified that Harrelson had boasted of assassinating President 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.

In 1989, conspiracy author Jim Marrs suggested that Harrelson was one of three unidentified “tramps” arrested by Dallas police near Dealey Plaza moments after the Kennedy shooting. Marrs also alleged that Harrelson was acquainted 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 surrendered after a guard fired a warning shot over their heads. Transferred thereafter 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 Assassination of a Federal Judge. New York: Atheneum, 1984. Denton, Sally. The Bluegrass Conspiracy: An Inside Story of Power, Greed, Drugs and Murder. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 1999. Marrs, Jim. Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 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.

639

This page intentionally left blank

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 predecessor 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 uprising 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 renouncing 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 Xerxes 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 retreat 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 father’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 produce a document that survives today as the Old Testament’s Book of Ezra, including 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, Artaxerxes 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 Bononcini 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 cities, 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

More recently, popular fascination with the Battle of Thermopylae has carried Xerxes into fiction and film, typically portrayed as a villain and megalomaniac. 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, complete 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.

643

This page intentionally left blank

Y YULDASHEV, TOHIR ABDUHALILOVICH (1967–2009) On September 30, 2009, a Pakistani English-language newspaper, The News International, 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 suppression 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 August 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 Middle 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 effective 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 Tavildara 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 explosions, 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 Kyrgyzstan, where ethnic Uzbeks comprised a majority of the population. Gunmen kidnapped the mayor of Osh, extorting a cash ransom from the Kyrgyz government, 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 Mahmood, 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 Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) a year after the fact—linking Yuldashev to the terrorist 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

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 “operationally inactive” in Uzbekistan, whereas others strongly disagree. In 2003, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia A. Elizabeth Jones told Congress that the group “is still active in the region—particularly in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, 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 special 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 Afghanistan, 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 December 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. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

647

This page intentionally left blank

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 education, 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 peonage, 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 expropriate land at gunpoint. In 1910, Zapata supported Francisco Madero’s electoral challenge to President Díaz. Díaz responded by imprisoning Madero, but Madero escaped from custody and fled to Texas, where he drafted the Plan of St. Luis Potosi, calling 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 rightful 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 counterrevolutionary, 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 better 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 feeling 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 differences, but the effort quickly went awry. Neither Zapata nor Villa attended in person, but their supporters hijacked the convention, declared themselves sovereign, and elected Eulalio Gutiérrez Ortiz as president of republic, while naming 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 executions, 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

ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION Founded on November 17, 1983, in a merger between indigenous rebels 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 operational. Typically disguised by ski masks or red bandanas, the new Zapatistas 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 Quesada, 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 support 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 Cuernavaca 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 depictions 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).

651

652

ZHANG ZUOLIN

Further Reading Brunk, Samuel. ¡Emiliano Zapata! Revolution and Betrayal in Mexico. Albuquerque: University 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 General Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Army. Chiang had defeated Zhang in battle the previous month, and Zhang was fleeing to Shenyang (Mukden in the Manchu 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 Ko¯moto Daisaku, furious at Zhang’s failure to stop the Nationalist advance, had planted a bomb on the outskirts 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, Sapper 1st Lieutenant Fujii Sadatoshi triggered the explosion, demolishing Zhang’s train. Several passengers, including 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. Guandong 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

Zhang Zuolin was born at Haicheng, in southern Fengtian Province, sometime 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 himself 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 election 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. Chastened 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 loyalist 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 support, 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 Manchuria 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

653

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 Manchuria’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 economy 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 communists 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 Chiang 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 Minister 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 established 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

Shai, Aron. Zhang Xueliang: The General Who Never Fought. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 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 occupied 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 appointment 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 Russian geographer who joined Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov to explore Mongolia in 1923–1926 and remained to marry a native woman. In the mid-1930s, Zorig’s grandparents fell prey to the Stalinist purges carried out by Marshal Khorloogiin Choibalsan 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 University, where he studied phi- Sanjaasuren Zorig, head of the Mongolian Demolosophy from 1980 to 1985. cratic Association was attacked in his home and Upon graduation, he returned stabbed 16 times. (Associated Press)

655

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 prescribed 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 Democratic Party of Mongolia, he began staging regular weekend protests in Ulan Bator’s Sükhbaatar Square, growing in size through February 1990. Mongolia’s communist regime, led by Jambyn Batmönkh since 1984, initially resisted any democratic reforms, but Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev influenced 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 leading 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 foundered 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 forcing Elbegdorj’s resignation. An urgent conference between rival party leaders 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 subject 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 environmentalism. In Mongolian, the new party’s name—Irgenii Zorig Nam—included her martyred brother’s name.

ZORIG, SANJAASUREN

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: Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2001.

657

This page intentionally left blank

PRIMARY DOCUMENTS

This page intentionally left blank

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 Pompey 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 successfully 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 executions of both Pothinus and Achillas. So when it was decided that he should fly to Egypt, he set sail from Cyprus 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 messenger 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 chamberlains 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 advised 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 distinguished 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 suspicion, 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 ordered 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!” Septimius nodded merely, without saying anything to him or showing any friendliness. 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

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 daggers 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 sufficient 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 thinkest 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 regret 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 following 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

663

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 Pompey 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: Harvard 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 lawyer, statesman, philosopher, and author of works on legal, rhetorical, and philosophical 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 influential 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 assassination 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 Octavian and Antony at the Battle of Philippi, committed suicide. I have read a small part of your letter to Octavius, transmitted to me by Atticus. 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

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 preferable?) 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 behoves 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 kindness 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 despair, 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 assumed 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 dependence upon his will; that the republic should be at his disposal. You thought

665

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 conditions of it. No doubt, we might have had an easy master in Antony, and whatever 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 attainment 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 unconcerned 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 attempt: 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 liberty 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

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 relics, 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 Octavius so great a man, that the people of Rome are to wait in suspense his judgment 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 themselves: 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 themselves 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 attends me which ought to attend me, we shall all rejoice; if not, still I shall rejoice 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 courage 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. Wherefore, 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

667

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

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 Palatine 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 effeminacy 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 collapsed and the workmen took to their heels; and at once a man called Cassius 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 distinguished 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 Antium 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 evidence of their proficiency that the stage swam in blood. A nocturnal performance 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

669

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 appear 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 covering 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 reestablishing 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. London, 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

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 controversial. 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 conquered 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 avaricious 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 triumphed, exulting in her abominable success. Wherefore, the heavens did abominate the land, and, fighting against sinners, 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 numerous portents. For there were thunders terrifying the earth, lightnings and thunderbolts 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 seditions; the Devil himself was seen bodily appearing in many woods; there was

671

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 murder 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, exasperated 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

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 December 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 subdeacon, 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 archbishop 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 hastened to close the doors of the church in order to bar the enemies from slaughtering 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 suffering 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 approached 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

673

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 dragging 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 consecrated 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 severed. 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 because 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 received 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

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 murder 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 imitated 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 perseverance. Neither his hand nor clothes indicated that he had opposed a murderer—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 traditions 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 Albert’s nephew, Duke John of Swabia, who was henceforth known as John the Parricide or John Parricida. Albert had become separated from his attendants, when a

675

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 record 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 murdering 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

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,

677

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

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.

679

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 various 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, Virginia; 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 Potomac; 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

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 condition 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 serious. Investigation strongly indicates J. Wilkes Booth as the assassin of the President. 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.

681

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 assassin 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, although 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

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 defendants 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 Department, 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 existing 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,

683

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-inChief 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 fortified 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 traitorously, to kill and murder the said Andrew Johnson, then being Vice-President of the United States; and the said Ulysses S. Grant, then being lieutenantgeneral 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 Jefferson 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 Washington City, within the Military Department of Washington, and within the intrenched 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 Commanderin-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof would devolve; and to unlawfully, maliciously, 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

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 VicePresident of the United States aforesaid, to cause an election to be held for electors 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 commanderin-chief; and to deprive the Armies of the United States of their lawful commander; 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 aforesaid, 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 prosecution 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 Commanderin-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 aforesaid, 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,

685

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 department 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 pistol 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 persons 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 murderous 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 Andrew 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

And in the further prosecution of the conspiracy aforesaid, and of its murderous and treasonable purposes aforesaid, on the nights of the 13th and 14th of April, A.D. 1865, at Washington City, and within the military department 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 unlawful, 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. receive, 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, Michael 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 execution thereof, and in escaping from justice after the murder of said Abraham Lincoln, in pursuance of said conspiracy in manner aforesaid. To which charge and specification the accused, David E. Herold, G. A. Atzerodt, 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.

687

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 bulletproof, 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 attempts 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 officer responsible for the safety of Czar Alexander II, had received disquieting reports 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 multitude 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

And he started toward one of the Cossacks. “It is too soon to thank God yet, Alexander Nicolaivitch,” said a clear, threatening 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 received 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 bombthrower 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 almost immediately identified as Sophia Perowskaja, the young woman who had given the handkerchief signal to the bomb-throwers, and who was wanted besides 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 premises 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 officers 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.

689

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 Executive 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 Risakoff, 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. Petersburg 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 Nihilists. 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 uniformed 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

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, university 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 carriage, 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 companion 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 persons 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

691

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 hideous 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 uncertainty of human life. Men may die, but the fabrics of our free institutions remain 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 honorable 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 intercourse, and the wisdom, integrity, and thrift of our people may be trusted to continue undisturbed the present assured career of peace, tranquilly, and welfare. 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

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 outlaw 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 dismissed 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 Campbell & 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

693

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 lodging 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 spectator 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

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 continued 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 democratically, 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 succeed 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 Czolgosz 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, penetrated 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.

695

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 bulletin 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 became 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 Directory 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 killing 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

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 futile, 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 significance 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 emergency. 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 distributed between the Legislature and the Executive. The share of the latter is great, but it is substantially subordinate and delegated. The immediate repository 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 freedom, the people live their own life, develop their own character, find their way through the complex conditions of National growth. The passing of the greatest of their servants, even by atrocious violence, cannot deeply disturb, cannot at all disable their vigorous and steady institutions . . .

697

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 vacancy 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 endeared 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 summarily 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 followed 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 savage 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

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 anxious 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. Buffalo, 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.

699

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 Ferdinand of Austria and his morganatic wife, Duchess Sophie, on June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, 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 organization that supported the incorporation of Bosnia into Serbia. Princip shot the imperial 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 Serbia. 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 Mehmedbasic 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 Archducal 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

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 Ferdinand. 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 attempt on the Archduke’s life was a frequent topic of conversation in the circle in which Princip and Cabrinovic moved, because the Archduke was considered 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 Pribicevic or from the Narodna Odbrana [“Defense of the People,” a Serbian independence 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 Princip 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 confidence. The latter is also shown by his own confession to have declared himself 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 Cabrinovic 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.”

701

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 shooting 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 revolvers and a sufficient quantity of ammunition as well as a glass tube of cyanide 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 assassination. 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 Mehemed 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 handgrenades 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 without 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 Odbrana and those who shared in its views, has of late been primarily directed against the person of the hereditary Archduke. From these facts, the conclusion may be drawn that the Narodna Odbrana, as well as the associations hostile 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 inciting, 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

accomplices with means of committing their crime. For, as Princip and Cabrinovic 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 Odbrana, 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. Indianapolis: 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 wouldbe assassins in the plot, to commit suicide so as to avoid having to divulge the plotters’ 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.

703

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 embitter 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 estimate their accuracy. The two chief criminals are intense Servian chauvinists, but there is no satisfactory evidence regarding their accomplices or the originator 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 authorities 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 indications 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 archduke. The archduke also was believed to be a foe to the pan-Servian movement, 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

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 Balkans and Italy. The extinction of Ferdinand as a factor in the Balkan situation may have farreaching 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 driving 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 protected 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.

705

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 explosion was violent. The iron shutters on many shops were pierced by flying fragments and iron railings were shattered. About a score of persons were injured, 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 represent 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 provinces 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 attempt 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 organize a demonstration against the Archduke. The Minister said if the Archduke 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 difficulty 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

The boy must have been carefully instructed in his part, for it was a wellguarded 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 invention enabled the Archduke to brave attempts on his life, but his head naturally 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 palace, in a dying condition. Later details show that the assassin darted forth from his hiding place behind 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 perpetrate 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 forwarding 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

707

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 questions 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 despaired 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 accounted 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 political murder was ever more deliberately performed. It was a festal day in Sarajevo, 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 defiance 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

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 circumstances 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 dissimilar birth, breeding and traditions. The tragedy at Sarajevo is the tragedy of inherited 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 marriage 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 ineligible to royal rank or succession. But Ferdinand stubbornly rejected any efforts 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 bitterness 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 discovered 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

709

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 Obregonista 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 Mexicano (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 murdered by the troops of Colonel Jesús Guajardo. They carried out this premeditated 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-inChief Zapata immediately answered Guajardo and offered every kind of assurances 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-inChief sent Citizen Colonel Feliciano Palacios to Guajardo’s camp in San Juan Chinameca. He remained with Guajardo until yesterday at four in the morning, 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

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 Margarito 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 orders. 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 movement, 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 “Guajardo and Palacios were arranging things.” We waited another half an hour with Castillo, and after repeated invitations, the Chief agreed. “We’re going to

711

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, mounting 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 soldiers 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 handful 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-inChief. 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, unknown 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 heading 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

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 Regiment. 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 accepted my forces. We spent the night there, where there was a force of Zapatistas 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 advancing to attack us. He gave orders to some of his forces to fight them and ordered 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 another 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 organized 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, including 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.

713

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 represent 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 Francisco 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 revolutionaries fall, men who dreamed of a better Mexico in good faith and without political 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

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 politics 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 challenge 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 people 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.

715

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 overproduction 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 employment 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

“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 further 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 questions. 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 information, 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 Declaration 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 America at least for one third the average. An average family is slightly less

717

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 America, 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 depositors nearly half of the money in the banks, leaving 99.9 of bank depositors 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 unless 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 people who work out their lives, feed and clothe children and are left penniless 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 Government of $30 per month, unless the person of 60 or over has an income 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

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 gentlemen: 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 anybody. 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 taxation. 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.

719

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 circulars, 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 newspapers 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 organize 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

cable on October 25, 1963, to the special assistant to the president for national security 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 prolonged 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 involvement 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 believe the involvement of another American in close contact with the generals 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 General’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

721

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 involved with him are seriously attempting to effect a change in the government. 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 masterminded a provocation, I believe that our involvement to date through Conein is still within the realm of plausible denial. CAS is perfectly prepared 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 assuming 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 distinct 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 succession of fights for control of the Government of Vietnam would interfere 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

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 government 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 realistic. This country simply is not ready for that procedure. I would add two other requirements. First, that there be no wholesale purges of personnel 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 highest 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 combined assessment with Harkins and CAS (including their separate comments 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.

723

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 spokesman for group and possibility cannot be discounted he may not be in good faith. We badly need some corroborative evidence whether Minh and others directly and completely involved. In view Don’s claim he doesn’t handle “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 recognize desirability involving MACV [U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam] to minimum, but believe Stilwell far more desirable this purpose 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. However, DOD [Department of Defense] is sending berth-equipped military aircraft that will arrive Saigon Thursday and could take you out thereafter as late as Saturday afternoon in time to meet your presently proposed arrival Washington Sunday. You could explain this being done as convenience 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 representative of President, with [William] Truehart [Deputy Chief of Mission] 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

reporting with prompt account of any important divergences in assessments 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 arrange orderly movement of seaborne Marine Battalion to waters adjacent 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 different sorts from one side or the other also request you forward contingency 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 substantial possibility of quick success; otherwise, we should discourage them from proceeding since a miscalculation could result in jeopardizing 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 morning, 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)

725

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 businessman, 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 morning 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’ headquarters. 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 Assistant 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

While above apparently confirmed information, it should be remembered that current situation in Saigon is made to order for any speculation surrounding Diem and Nhu. According to Thao and Linh, Diem and Nhu could have maintained telephone 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 escaped 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.

727

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 nation, 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 Presidential assassination in the history of a country dedicated to the concepts of reasoned argument and peaceful political change. This Commission was created 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 Commission’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 candidate 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 responsible 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 minutes 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 President. After considering the facilities and security problems of several buildings, 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

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 papers starting on November 19. This advance publicity made it clear that the motorcade would leave Main Street and pass the intersection of Elm and Houston 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 assume a protective stance near the President and Mrs. Kennedy. As the motorcade 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 approach to the Stemmons Freeway and the Trade Mart. As the President’s car approached the intersection of Houston and Elm Streets, there loomed directly ahead on the intersection’s northwest corner a seven-story, orange brick warehouse 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

729

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 motorcade 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 radioed 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 forward 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 toward 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 Presidential 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 doctors 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

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 administered by a priest, President Kennedy was pronounced dead. Governor Connally underwent surgery and ultimately recovered from his serious wounds. Upon learning of the President’s death, Vice President Johnson left Parkland 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 disclosed 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 performed 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 concerning 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 publishers. 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 watching 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

731

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 description 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 building, 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 Depository 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

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 required 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 midday 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 assassination, 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 roominghouse. 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 broadcast 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 direction 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 Tippit’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

733

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 Avenue 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 intersection 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 pistol 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 Avenue 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

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 officers disarmed and handcuffed the suspect and drove him to police headquarters, 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 investigation. 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 between 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

735

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 Captain 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 Harvey 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 interrogation 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, Marguerite 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 Oswald 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 reentered 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

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 stationed 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 psychological 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 feeling 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 hurting people, but during his stay at Youth House he was apparently not a behavior 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 returned 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 improvement in Lee’s behavior during the next few months, the court recommended further treatment. In January 1954, while Lee’s case was still pending, Marguerite 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

737

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 birthday. 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 Marine 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 marines, 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 Orleans 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

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 College in Switzerland for admission to the Spring 1960 term. His letter of application 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 Finland, 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 attempt, 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 become 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 Nikolaevna 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 himself 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 concluded that Oswald had not lost his citizenship, a decision subsequently ratified 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 December 25, 1961, Marina Oswald was advised it would be granted.

739

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 Department 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 intelligence 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 household 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 society 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 English 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

the event he did not return. That incident, and their general economic difficulties 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 Orleans. 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 organization 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 information 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 Committee in New Orleans. On July 19, 1963, Oswald lost his job as a greaser of coffee processing machinery. 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, ostensibly 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.

741

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 Irving, 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 conciliatory, 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 following 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 followed 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 shooting to Marina Oswald as it came over television, including the report that the shots were probably fired from the building where Oswald worked. When Marina 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 appeared 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 Oswald 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

Meanwhile, at police headquarters Captain Fritz had begun questioning Oswald. 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 murder 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 department, 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 advised that he had been charged with the murder of Patrolman J. D. Tippit. Several witnesses to the Tippit slaying and to the subsequent flight of the gunman had positively identified Oswald in police lineups. While positive firearm identification evidence was not available at the time, the revolver in Oswald’s possession 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.

743

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 public many of the details concerning the alleged evidence against Oswald. Police officials discussed important aspects of the case, usually in the course of impromptu and confused press conferences in the third-floor corridor. Some of the information divulged was erroneous. Efforts by the news media representatives to reconstruct the crime and promptly report details frequently led to erroneous 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 assembly 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 representatives 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 maneuverability. 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 newsmen 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 maintained 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

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 transfer. 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 conclusions 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 reasoned 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 Connally 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 exclusion 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

745

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 Commission 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 probability but there is no question in the mind of any member of the Commission 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 Connally 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 morning 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 belonging 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

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 capability with a rifle which enabled him to commit the assassination. (f) Oswald lied to the police after his arrest concerning important substantive 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 minutes 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 Oswald 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 arrest to the exclusion of all other weapons. (c) The revolver in Oswald’s possession at the time of his arrest was purchased by and belonged to Oswald. (d) Oswald’s jacket was found along the path of flight taken by the gunman as he fled from the scene of the killing. 7. Within 80 minutes of the assassination and 35 minutes of the Tippit killing Oswald resisted arrest at the theatre by attempting to shoot another Dallas police officer. 8. The Commission has reached the following conclusions concerning Oswald’s interrogation and detention by the Dallas police: (a) Except for the force required to effect his arrest, Oswald was not subjected to any physical coercion by any law enforcement officials. He was advised that he could not be compelled to give any information 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

747

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 interrogation 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 confusion and disorder in the police station, would have presented serious obstacles to the obtaining of a fair trial for Oswald. To the extent that the information was erroneous or misleading, it helped to create 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 killing 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 before 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 assassinate 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

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

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 October 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. The Commission has found no evidence that Oswald was involved with any person or group in a conspiracy to assassinate the President, although it has thoroughly investigated, in addition to other possible leads, all facets of Oswald’s associations, finances, and personal habits, particularly during the period following his return from the Soviet Union in June 1962. 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 circumstances 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 reconstructed, his known contacts with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and his visits to the Cuban and Soviet Embassies in Mexico City during his trip to Mexico from September 26 to October 3, 1963, and his known contacts with the Soviet Embassy in the United States. The Commission has explored all attempts of Oswald to identify himself with various political groups, including the Communist Party, U.S.A., the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and the Socialist Workers 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. All of the evidence before the Commission established that there was nothing to support the speculation that Oswald was an agent, employee, 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 contacts with Oswald by any of these agencies were made in the regular exercise of their different responsibilities. 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, although a thorough investigation was made of the many rumors and speculations of such a relationship.

749

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 Oswald, knew each other or that Oswald and Tippit knew each other. 10. Because of the difficulty of proving negatives to a certainty the possibility 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 assassination of President Kennedy, one must look to the assassin himself. 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 Commission has presented with this report all of the background information 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 Oswald’s motives. It has endeavored to isolate factors which contributed to his character and which might have influenced his decision to assassinate 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 understood 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

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 irresponsible actions. 13. The Commission recognizes that the varied responsibilities of the President 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 difficulty in meeting its protective responsibility varies with the activities and the nature of the occupant of the Office of President and his willingness to conform to plans for his safety. In appraising the performance 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 recent 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 Service treated the direct threats against the President adequately, it failed to recognize the necessity of identifying other potential 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 effect, 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.

751

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 preparations 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 Commission has concluded that the advance preparations for the President’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 assisting 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 Secret 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 windows in these buildings during the motorcade was divided between 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 arrangements during the trip to Dallas were clearly not sufficient. (e) The configuration of the Presidential car and the seating arrangements of the Secret Service agents in the car did not afford the Secret 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 reacted 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

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 Commission is encouraged by the efforts taken by the Secret Service since the assassination 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 activities of the Secret Service and the other Federal agencies that assist in safeguarding the President. Once given this responsibility, such a committee would insure that the maximum resources of the Federal Government 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 Service to some other department or agency. The Commission believes that if there is to be any determination of whether or not to relocate these responsibilities 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, intelligence, and allied fields to provide effective continuing supervision, and to keep the Secretary fully informed regarding the performance of the Secret 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 overhaul 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

753

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 criteria 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 protective measures followed in the planning, and conducting of Presidential 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 recent 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 Service 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 developed, 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 accompany him during his travels and occupy a position near the President 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 President a Federal crime. A state of affairs where U.S. authorities have no clearly defined jurisdiction to investigate the assassination of a President 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

However, the Commission believes that the Department in accordance with its own regulations should in all cases exercise great care in the return to this country of defectors who have evidenced disloyalty or hostility to this country or who have expressed a desire to renounce 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 establish 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 individuals 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 consideration 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 consider 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 President 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

755

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 November 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 Governor. At the White House, Kenneth O’Donnell, special assistant to the President, 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, however, 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

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 police departments and local offices of other Federal agencies which advise it of potential threats immediately before the visit of the President to their community. 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 October 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 President was scheduled to speak, with copies of these photographs. Dallas detectives 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 investigated. 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 police 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, including 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 discussed in chapter VIII. The Luncheon Site An important purpose of the President’s visit to Dallas was to speak at a luncheon given by business and civic leaders. The White House staff informed

757

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 detail, asked Sorrels to examine three potential sites for the luncheon. One building, 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 entrances and easy to make secure, but it lacked necessary food-handling facilities 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 difficulties 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 detailed arrangements for security at the building. In addition to the preventive measures already mentioned, they provided for controlling access to the building, closing off and policing areas around it, securing the roof and insuring the presence of numerous police officers inside and around the building. Ultimately more than 200 law enforcement officers, mainly Dallas police but including 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 Dallas, 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 easily 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

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 Sorrels 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 reviewed 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 belief 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 parade 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. According 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 distance, 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 sufficient 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 offered 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

759

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 landscaped 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 permitted 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, traffic 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 security 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, arrangements 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 arrangements 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 watching 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 newspapers 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 TimesHerald.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

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 Mockingbird 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 “Harwood to Main, Main to Houston, Houston to Elm, Elm under the Triple Underpass 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 readers with a steady stream of information and speculation about the trip, beginning 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 community toward the forthcoming Presidential visit. Although there were critical editorials and letters to the editors, the news stories reflected the desire of Dallas 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 “congenial 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

761

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, Stevenson 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 Connally 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 disturbances during the President’s visit. On November 18 the Dallas City Council adopted a new city ordinance prohibiting interference with attendance at lawful 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 Commerce 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” welcome 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 advertisement headed “Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas,” sponsored by the American Fact-finding Committee, which the sponsor later testified was an ad hoc committee “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

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 motorcade, 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 President 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 nothing 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

763

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 President 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 unscheduled 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 positions 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 automobile preceded the main party by approximately quarter of a mile. Its function was to alert police along the route that the motorcade was approaching 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 Secret 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 designed 1961 Lincoln convertible with two collapsible jump seats between the front and rear seats. . . . It was outfitted with a clear plastic bubbletop 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 Assistant 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

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 designed 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 responsibilities included maintaining radio communications with the lead and followup 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 motorcycles 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 behind 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 shotgun 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 windows 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.

765

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 Lincoln 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 detail, 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 Presidential 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. Admiral George G. Burkley, physician to the President, was in a car following 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 vehicles 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, Presidential 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

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 tremendous 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 forward 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 enthusiastic 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 approximately 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 subsequent 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.

767

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 toward her left and waved to the crowds along the route. Soon after the motorcade 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 husband. 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 attempt. 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

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 testimony 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 microphone 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 imperceptible 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 instructions 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

769

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, coming 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 followup 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 automobile 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 bumper 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 automobile. 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 shooting, but Hickey kept the automatic weapon ready as the car raced to the hospital. Most of the other Secret Service agents in the motorcade had drawn their sidearms. Roberts noticed that the Vice President’s car was approximately onehalf 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 beginning 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

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 second 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 because Agent Youngblood turned in a flash, immediately after the first explosion, 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 moment 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 shooting, and none entered the Texas School Book Depository Building at or immediately 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. Meanwhile, 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 Department 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

771

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 simultaneously 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 happened” 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 prepared. 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 members 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 President. 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 Governor 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

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 determined 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 larynx, which was deviated slightly to the left, and also ragged tissue which indicated 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 established if treatment was to be effective, Dr. Perry performed a tracheotomy, which required 3 to 5 minutes. While Dr. Perry was performing the tracheotomy, 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 administering 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 anesthesiology, and Dr. A. H. Giesecke, Jr., then joined in the effort to revive the President. 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 progress, Dr. Clark noted some electrical activity on the cardiotachyscope attached to monitor the President’s heart responses. Dr. Clark, who most closely observed 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 considerable 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

773

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 viewpoint, President Kennedy was alive when he arrived at Parkland Hospital; the doctors observed that he had a heart beat and was making some respiratory efforts. But his condition was hopeless, and the extraordinary efforts of the doctors 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 inspection 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 immediately 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 establish 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

Moreover, the Parkland doctors took no further action after the President had expired because they concluded that it was beyond the scope of their permissible 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 inserted 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 Governor 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 Governor’s chest and suturing the damaged lung and lacerated muscles. The elliptical 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 Governor 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 operation 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 centimeter) 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

775

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 detailed 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. Representatives 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 received 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 President’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 President said that he would not leave Dallas without her. On the recommendation 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

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 Service 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 surrounding 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 Service made the necessary arrangements for the Vice President to leave the hospital. 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 window 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 hospital, 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. Despite 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

777

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 immediately. 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 radio. 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, accompanied President Kennedy’s body on the 45-minute automobile trip from Andrews 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

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 pathological 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 examination, 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 fragment lying just above the right eye. From this head wound two small irregularly 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/.

779

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 investigating 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 investigation of the Jowers and Wilson allegations. We also conducted additional witness 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, additional 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 .

the trial evidence. As to the Wilson allegations, no evidence, other than newspaper articles recounting Wilson’s claims, was offered. Accordingly, after considering 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 conspiracies 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 allegations. 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 information 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 governmentdirected 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 assassination. 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

781

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 alleged 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 surveillance 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 conspiracy 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 workers’ 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 conducting electronic surveillance. Eli Arkin, a former Memphis police intelligence officer, answered questions about the presence of military personnel in Memphis. Arkin testified, consistent 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 photographic 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 .

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 conspiracy to assassinate Dr. King. Rather, it consists of speculation or secondhand and thirdhand hearsay accounts that remain totally unsubstantiated or contradicted. 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 actually 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 alleged opinion was based upon fact rather than conjecture. Accordingly, Hamblin’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 suppressed 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 historical record, including CIA records, some of which were classified, we found

783

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 Representatives, 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 emphasized, “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 during 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 investigations that were unrelated to the assassination in return for a reduced sentence for his own criminal activity. We are aware, however, of no information to substantiate the inference that Baldwin was thus involved in a governmentdirected 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 accusations 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” deposition outlining a conspiracy involving the Mafia and implicating both the President 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 .

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 accomplished. It states that on April 4, 1968, the deponent and others flew to Memphis 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 alleging a government-directed conspiracy, no live witness testimony or documentary 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 contradicted 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 alleged that military personnel killed Dr. King, hearsay accounts and speculation suggested that military personnel were somehow connected to the assassination and actually witnessed it. Dr. Pepper introduced redacted copies of notes purporting to document interviews 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

785

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 unidentified source. He related that while writing his book, he learned that a single unnamed source allegedly involved in the military’s anti-war surveillance “heard a rumor” that the 111th MIG was conducting surveillance of Dr. King in Memphis 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 CIAdirected group supplying arms and military software to the Contra rebels in Honduras in the 1980s, offered a hearsay opinion of a deceased source. Terrell 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 problem, expressed the “view” that in 1968 he had been trained specifically to participate 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 .

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. According 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.

787

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, including 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 operating 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 assassination or that military personnel ever conducted surveillance of Dr. King. Steve McCall, then a Sergeant and investigator with the 111th MIG, did remember, however, somehow hearing that agents from his unit were being dispatched 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 surveillance 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 .

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 interviewed 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 assassination. 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 photographs, 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 information 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 relating 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.

789

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 Commercial 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 allegations of the guardsman and his observer and no longer believes them. He stated that the guardsman, like Brenner, wanted money in exchange for documents 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 explained 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 Department 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 Memphis. Tompkins’ interview notes also make several references to the team leader’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 personnel from the 20th SFG were there, and provided an account of his whereabouts 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 .

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, acknowledged that approximately two weeks after the assassination he was operating 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 assassination and writer Jack Terrell that his now deceased employee talked about a canceled 20th SFG mission to kill Dr. King. We found neither witnesses’ testimony 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 accounts proved inaccurate. In conclusion, we found no evidence that military personnel saw, photographed, 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 surveillance of Dr. King on the day of the assassination. We found no conclusive evidence that they did. Other information, however, establishes that the military 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 African American ministers, who were associates of Dr. King, conspired to kill him. Testimony was presented to imply that Dr. King’s associates facilitated the assassination 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, dismissing 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.

791

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 analysis 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 assassination. 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 because 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, testified 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 patronage 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 officer 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 .

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 assassination. 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 investigators, including those representing Ray, who interviewed him. Moreover, Reverend Abernathy’s testimony to the HSCA about the “KingAbernathy suite” (balcony Room 306) completely contradicts Cohen’s testimony. 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 accusations 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 Inspector 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, African 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 ranking 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 “Memphis Minister” was the specific source of the request to remove tactical units. When we interviewed the “Memphis Minister,” he denied ever making such a

793

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 Minister” 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 former Memphis police officers, the Invaders were young, African American activists 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 recollect 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] staffers,” 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 recollections of others. Significantly, in Cabbage’s recent testimony in King v. Jowers, he claimed that it was Reverend James Orange who evicted the Invaders, telling 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 instruction 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 facilitated 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 questioned 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 conduct 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 .

as he described the events of the assassination, the “Memphis Minister” recounted 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 “Memphis Minister” walked a few steps away from Dr. King, the assassin fired. As discussed 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,” considered 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 inadvertent 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 accusation 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 allegations consisted of either inaccurate and incomplete information or unsubstantiated 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 conspiracy 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

795

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 allegations originating with Loyd Jowers and Donald Wilson are not credible. We found no reliable evidence to support Jowers’ allegations that he conspired 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 professed 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 implausible 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 review 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 however considered other allegations, including the unsubstantiated claims made during the trial of King v. Jowers that government agencies and African American ministers associated with Dr. King conspired to kill him. Where warranted, we conducted limited additional investigation. Thus, we evaluated all additional 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 further investigation. Finally, while we conducted no original investigation specifically 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 allegations, 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

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 unless and until reliable substantiating facts are presented. At this time, we are aware of no information to warrant any further investigation of the assassination 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

797

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 affection and respect, order, encouragement, and support. Our awareness of this was an incalculable source of strength, and because real love is something unselfish 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 starvation. 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

Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory 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 greatness 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 generation. 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 quality 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 before 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 society 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 reason 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 decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

799

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 attorney 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 support 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 orientation 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

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, engaging 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-ofa-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 elevator 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

801

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 employees 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 caliber 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, answered 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 constitutional 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 alcohol nor did Sirhan appear to Mr. Unruh to be under the influence of intoxicating 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

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, Ambassador 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 requested 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 physician 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 District 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.”

803

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 identify 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 Senator 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 ammunition, 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 Kennedy’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

c.

d.

e. f.

g. h.

victim Schrade in the center of his forehead. The bullet was recovered from his head and booked into evidence. The third bullet entered Senator Kennedy’s right rear shoulder approximately 7" below the top of the shoulder. This bullet was recovered by the Coroner from the sixth cervical vertebra and booked as evidence. The fourth bullet entered Senator Kennedy’s right rear back approximately 1" to the right of bullet #3. This bullet traveled upward and forward 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. The fifth bullet struck victim Goldstein in the left rear buttock. This bullet was recovered from the victim and booked as evidence. 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. The seventh bullet struck victim Weisel in the left abdomen and was recovered and booked as evidence. 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, prosecution, 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 permission to search the defendant’s bedroom. The officers did not have a search warrant 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 determine 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.”

805

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 documents, 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 eliminated . . . 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 caliber 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 ammunition 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

Documents obtained from the California Department of Motor Vehicles established 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 residence 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 inside 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 District 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 Kennedy 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.

807

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 bleeding, 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 manufacturer, 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 enforcement 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

(I) 7 days have elapsed from the date the transferee furnished the statement, and the transferor has not received information 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 enforcement officer that the officer has no information indicating 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 statement, 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 issued only after an authorized government official has verified 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 individual 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 manufacturer, or licensed dealer completes the transfer of a handgun to an individual who is not licensed under section 923, an authorized government official verifies that the information available to such official does not indicate that

809

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 violation 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 possession 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 identification document (as defined in section 1028(d)(1)) of the transferee containing a photograph of the transferee and a description 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 Substances 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 dishonorable 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 report 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

that receipt or possession of the handgun by the transferee violates Federal, State, or local law shall immediately communicate all information 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 authorities, or pursuant to the direction of a court of law. (6)

(A) Any transferor who sells, delivers, or otherwise transfers a handgun 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 violate 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 officer” 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 circumstances described in subsection (c). (9) The Secretary shall take necessary actions to assure that the provisions 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.

811

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, reproduced 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 government 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 prepared 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

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 continue 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 progressive 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 community 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.

813

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

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

817

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 Ito¯ 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

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 Na¯der Afsha¯r

May 1, 1896:

Emperor Naser Qajar

September 3, 1933:

Minister of Court Abdolhosein Teymu¯rta¯sh

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

819

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: December 7, 1869:

Serizawa Kamo, chief of Shinsengumi police O¯mura Masujiro¯, military leader

May 14, 1878:

Home Minister O¯kubo Toshimichi

February 12, 1889:

Education Minister Mori Arinori

October 26, 1909:

Prime Minister Io¯ 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 Saito¯ 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

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

821

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

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 Kıs¸ lali, 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

823

824

APPENDIX

Bosnia and Herzegovina May 28, 1995:

Dr. Irfan Ljubijankic, ´ 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 Borˇ ivoj 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

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

825

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

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

827

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:

Ðorde ¯ Petrovi´c, ex-president

June 10, 1868:

Prince Mihailo Obrenovi´c

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

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 Kıs¸lalı, 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 Ražnatovi´c, Serb warlord

February 7, 2000:

Defense Minister Pavle Bulatovi´c

August 25, 2000:

Ivan Stamboli´c, ex-president

829

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 Schwerner, 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

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

831

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

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

833

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

Assassination. New York: Time-Life Education, 1994. Badrawi, Malak. Political Violence in Egypt 1910–1925: Secret Societies, Plots and Assassinations. 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 Conspiracy 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.

Index

Note: Page numbers in boldface reflect main entries in the book. Abancay, Battle of, 430 Abdallah Abdermane, Ahmen, 1–2 Abdel-Rahman, Omar, 252, 499, 501 Abdollahi, Fattah, 90 Abu Bakr, 586 Acciarito, Pietro, 588 Achillas, 431 Acosta, Carlos, 249 Action Group (AG; Nigeria), 232–233 Adamson, John Harvey, 53 Adelphon, Kuklos, 277 Adolph, Shawn Robert, 376 Adwa, Battle of, 588 Adwan, Kamal, 387 Aemilianus, 67 African National Congress (ANC), 208, 400, 520–521, 603 African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), 607–609 Agirre, Julen, 77–78 Aguigui, Isaac, 379 Aguiyi-Ironsi, Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe, 2–3, 30, 32 Ahmad, Khondaker Mostaq, 14 Ahmad, Tajuddin, 14 Ahmed, A.K.M. Mohiuddin, 15 Ahmed, Mohiuddin, 342 Ain Jalut, Battle of, 445 Aizawa Saburo, 557 Akinsehinwa, Akintunde, 331 Akintola, Ladoke, 30 Alaei, Ahmad Mir, 90 Alamut (Bartol), 24

al-Banna, Sheikh Hasan Ahmed Abdel Rahman Muhammed, 3–5 Albert I of Habsburg, 6–7, 6 (portrait), 9, 675 al-Din Shah Qajar, Nasser, 7–9, 8 (photo) Alexander I of Serbia, 9–10, 159 Alexander I of Yugoslavia, 10–12, 11 (photo) Alexander II of Russia, 12–14, 12 (photo), 103, 325, 369, 423, 688, 690 Alexander III (Pope), 36, 37 Alexander III of Russia, 13, 51, 370, 688, 690 Alexander Severus, 67 Alexander the Great, 423– 424, 433, 517–519 Alexander VI (Pope), 55 Alexius II, 67 Alfonso XIII (Spanish King), 72 Älgarås, Battle of, 93 Algerian People’s Party (APP), 58 Algerian War of Independence, 58 Algranati, Rita, 338 Ali, Muhammad Mansur, 14–15 Alien Tort Claims Act, 485 Alizadeh, Ghazaleh, 91 All the King’s Men (film), 409 Allende, Salvador, 288–289, 515–516 Almagro, Diego de, II, 427– 430 al-Masri, Saeed, 45 al-Mulk, Nizam, 23–24 Alnwick, Battle of, 635

838

INDEX

al-Qaeda terrorist group, 46– 47, 62, 98, 304, 378, 441, 504, 645–646 Alumni, Conrad, 337 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 287, 473 American Colonization Society (ACS), 116 (sidebar), 567 American Independent Party (AIP), 623–624 American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), 506–507 Amin, Hafizullah, 15–17, 106, 119, 558–559 Amin, Idi, 16, 256, 305–306, 449 Amir, Yigal, 447 Amiztab, Ali, 88 Amnesty International, 401 anarchism, 134, 325 (sidebar), 345, 651 Anastasia (film), 459 Anckarström, Jacob Johan, 196 Andone, Radu, 69 Andriamihaja, 452 Angelina, Irene, 420 Angiolillo, Michele, 73 Anglo-Iraqi Treaty (1948), 147 Anglo-Persian War (1857), 8 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (newspaper), 634 Anouilh, Jean, 38 Antequera, Jose, 402 anti-Semitism, 13, 131, 142, 149, 192, 216, 223, 225, 250–251, 418– 419, 461, 479 Antonescu, Ion, 70 Apartheid’s “Prime Evil,” 521 (sidebar) Apocalypse Now (film), 427 Aqa, Ahad, 89 Aquino, Benigno Simeon, Jr., 17–19 Arab Resistance Movement, 504 Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, 148 Arafat, Yasser, 449, 502 Araujo, Manuel Enrique, 20–21 Arbarios, 534 Arcadia (Lane), 493 Archer, Jeffrey, 86 Ardalan, Homayoun, 90

Argaña Ferraro, Luis María del Corazon de Jesús Dionisio, 21–22 Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, 78 Argentine Regional Workers’ Federation (FORA), 149 Aristotle, 424, 641 Armenian Genocide, 269–270 Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), 269–270, 513 Armistice of Mudros (1918), 201–202 Army in Defense of the National Sovereignty of Nicaragua, 508–509 Army of God (AOG), 194–195 (sidebar) Arnold, Samuel, 292 Arredondo, Avelino, 231 Artabanus, 641 Artaxerxes, 642 Arusha Accords, 592 Arutyunian, Vladimir, 62 Aspamitres, 641 Assassins Cult, 23–25 Aster (Chrysanthemum) Revolution, 562 Atahualpa, 429– 430 Athemius, 67 Athens News (newspaper), 625 Athulathmudali, Lalith, 435– 436 Atthoumani, Said, 1–2 Atzerodt, George, 291–293 Audisio, Walter, 344 Aurelian, 67 Auschwitz extermination camp, 224 Awami League (East Pakistan), 14, 15, 454– 455 Azadifar, Bahram, 90 Azikiwe, Benjamin Nnamdi, 31 Aziz Khan, Sirdar Mohammed, 353–354 Azizi, Taher, 91 Baader, Andreas, 59 Baader–Meinhof Group, 59 Ba’ath Party, 148 Bábism religion, 8 Badr, Battle of, 586 Baghdad Pact (1955), 147

INDEX

Bagheri, Behrouz, 88 Bahá’í faith, 8 Bahonar, Mohammad-Javad, 27–28 Baibars, 444– 445 BAK International, 395 Bakhtiar, Shapour, 89 Balbinus, 28–30, 29 (portrait), 67 Balboa, Vasco Núñez de, 428 Balewa, Abubakar Tafawa, 3, 30–32, 31 (photo) Balkan Wars (1912–1913), 10 Ballivián, José, 39 Balouch Khan, Hadj, 89 Balzerani, Barbara, 338 Bandaranaike, Solomon West Ridgeway Dias, 32–34, 33 (photo) Bandi, Bernardo, 326 Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), 453, 456 Bantu Authorities Act, 602 Bantu Building Workers Act, 602 Bao Dai, 362–364 Baptist World Alliance, 567 Barazandeh, Hossein, 90 Barbie, Klaus, 229 Barrera, Ernesto, 485 Barrientos Ortuño, René, 188 Barrière, Pierrfe, 220 Bartlett, Asa, 278–279 Bartol, Vladimir, 24 Bartolotta, Salvatore, 94 Bastien-Thiry, Jean-Marie, 174–175 Batallón Vasco Español (Basque Spanish Battalion) terrorist group, 40– 41 Batista, Fulgencio, 578 Bautista Gill García del Barrio, Juan, 34–35 Bautista Sacasa, Juan, 508–510, 539 Bava-Beccaris massacre, 588 Bavaud, Maurice, 227 Bay of Pigs invasion (Cuba), 189, 261, 262, 366, 408 Bayahmadi, Ata’ollah, 88 BBC History magazine, 38 Bean, John William, 604

Beatles, 154, 286 Becerra, Busch, 615 Becker, Verena, 60–61 Becket, Thomas, 35–38, 36 (portrait) Becket play (Anouilh), 38 Beckwith, Byron De La, 140, 142 Bedford, Thomas, 550–551 Beg, Baba Ali, 351–352 Begin, Menachem, 388, 449, 501 Belimace, Doru, 120 Bellingham, Henry, 415 Bellingham, John, 412 Bello, Ahmadu, 30, 31 Belvin, Tillman, 336 Belzec extermination camp, 224 Belzu Humerez, Manuel Isidoro, 38–39 Beñaran Ordeñana, José Miguel, 40– 41, 78 Bengliu, Ioan, 121 Bent, Charles, 42– 43 Berezovsky, Boris, 296 Berg, Alab, 279 Berling, Peter, 24 Berlusconi, Silvio, 57 Bet-Zuri, Eliyahu, 190, 192 Bey, Ibrahim, 528 Bhatti, Shahbaz, 561 Bhutto, Benazir, 43– 45, 44 (photo), 562 Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali, 43, 106, 454– 455, 560 Biayenda, Émile, 368 Bien Xuyen crime syndicate, 364 Biko, Steve, 603 bin Laden, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad, 45– 47, 98, 252, 441, 502, 645–646, 649 bin Laden, Shafig, 46– 47 Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, 48– 49 Bishop, Maurice Rupert, 49–50, 81 Biwott, Nicholas, 393 Black Beret Cadre (BBC), 525–526 The Black Hand (Serbian secret society), 10, 158 (sidebar), 159 Black Hand society (Serbia), 10

839

840

INDEX

Black Muslims, 312, 314, 479 Black Panther Party (BPP), 205, 207 (sidebar), 273, 284, 479, 525 Black September Organization (BSO), 386–390 “Black Sheep Plot,” 571 (sidebar) Blackburn, Robert, 155 Blanchard, Jerry M., 375 Blood River, Battle of, 524 Bobrikov, Nikolay Ivanovich, 51–52 Bodjollé, Emmanuel, 384–385 Boleslaus, 628, 629 Bolles, Don, 52–54, 52 (photo) Bonaparte, Napoleon, 412, 439, 453, 551 Boniface VIII (Pope), 7 Boock, Peter-Jürgen, 60–61 Book of Mormon (Smith), 531, 551 Book of the Law of the Lord (Strang), 551 Booth, John Wilkes, 291–296 Borgia, Giovanni, 54–55 Borgia, Lucrezia, 55 The Borgias (Showtime series), 55 Boroumand, Abdolrahman, 89 Borsellino, Paolo, 56–57, 56 (photo) Boudiaf, Mohamed, 57–59, 58 (photo) Boumaârafi, Lembarek, 58, 59 Boxer Rebellion, 588, 653 Bradley, William, 316 Brady, James, 465– 466 Brandt, Karl, 618–619 Breitenbuch, Eberhard von, 228 Bremer, Arthur Herman, 621, 624 Bresci, Gaetano, 588, 590 Bresler, Fenton, 287 Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of, 372 Brezhnev, Leonid, 17, 558–559 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 525–526, 646 Britton, John, 195 Broken Sword (role-playing game), 25 Brooklyn, Earl, 336 Brusca, Giovanni, 57 Bryan–Chamorro Treaty (1914), 509 Buback, Siegfried, 59–61, 60 (photo)

Buddharakkitha. Mapitigama, 33–34 Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BANU), 541–542 Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee (BRCC), 534 Bundy, Theodore, 469 Burnett, Michael, 379 Burrows, Erskine Durrant, 525–526 Burundi Civil War, 360 (sidebar) Burundi Workers’ Party (UBU), 358 Bush, George H. W., 46, 47, 62, 99 Bush, George Walker, 46– 47, 61–63, 99, 375–377, 394, 442, 469, 538, 627 Butcher of Prague. See Heydrich, Reinhard Tristan Eugen Butler, Norman 3X, 312, 317 Buzakha, Battle of, 586 Cáceres Vasquez, Ramón Arturo, 220, 222 Caesar, Gaius Julius, 65–67, 66 (portrait), 431, 433– 434 The Caesars (TV series), 69 Cahill, Martin “The General,” 187 Caldwell Tribune (newspaper), 545 Calhoun, John C., 238 Caligula, 67–69 Caligula (movie), 69 Caligula play (Camus), 69 Călinescu, Armand, 69–70, 121 Camus, Albert, 69 Canalejas y Méndez, José, 71 Cánovas del Castillo, Antonio, 72–73, 325 Capone (movie), 86 Caracalla, 67 Caranica, Ion, 120 Carbonária (Portuguese conspiratorial revolutionary society), 74–75 Carbonneau, Marc, 285 Carinus, 67 Carlist Wars, 438 Carlos I of Portugal, 73–75, 74 (photo), 325

INDEX

Carnation Revolution (Portugal), 334, 607 Carranza de la Garza, Venustiano, 75–76, 310, 382–383, 611, 614–616, 652–654 Carrero Blanco, Luis, 40, 71, 76–78, 77 (photo) Carson, Christopher “Kit,” 42 Carter, Asa Earl, 622 Carter, Jimmy, 154, 294, 304, 449, 468, 492, 498, 501, 537, 581, 598, 624 Carthage, Battle of, 29 Casimirri, Alessio, 337 Cassarà, Antonino, 57 Castillo Armas, Carlos, 78–80, 79 (photo) Castro, Raul, 189 Castro Ruz, Fidel Alejandro, 80–82, 189, 262–263, 268, 304–305, 314, 512, 514, 559, 575, 578 Catalano, Agostino, 56 Catargiu, Barbu, 83, 121 Catherine the Great, 410– 411, 415– 417 Catholic League of France, 218–220 Cedergren, Sigvard, 399 Celaya, Battle of, 382 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 46, 79–81, 146, 189, 242, 259, 261–262, 267–269, 286–290, 302–305, 328, 338, 361–368, 400, 406, 425– 426, 472– 475, 492– 493, 515–516, 537, 578, 625–628, 721, 749, 783–784, 789 Cermak, Anton Joseph, 84–86, 84 (photo), 212, 301 Cesar, Thane Eugene, 267 Cha Jicheol, 403 Chaco War (La Guerra de la Sed) (The War of the Thirst), 614–615 Chadian Progressive Party (PPT), 570, 571 Chaeronea, Battle of, 424 Chagra, Jamiel Alexander, 637–638 Chagra, Joe, 638 Chain Murders (Iran), 87–91

Challe, Maurice, 173–174 Chapman, David, 285, 287 Charles VII of Sweden, 92–93, 553 Chartrand, Michel, 285 Châtel, Jean, 220 Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), 247–248 Chechnya. See First Chechen War; Second Chechen War Chelmno extermination camp, 224 Chen Chi-li, 298–299 Chernozemski, Vlado, 10 Chiang Kai-shek, 652–654 Chicago Tribune (newspaper), 583 The Children of the Grail (Berling), 24 Children under Apartheid (September), 520 Chillingworth, Curtis Eugene, 93–94 Chinese-American Red Guard Party, 206 Chinnici, Rocco, 57, 94–96, 95 (photo) Chitunda, Jeremias Kalandula, 96–97 Choices of the Heart (film), 486 Christian Democracy party (Italy), 336–338 Chronicle of the Kings of England (William of Malmesbury), 634 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon, LDS Church), 531, 551 Churchill, Winston, 173, 191–192, 310, 343, 583 CIA “Executive Action,” 304 (sidebar), 493 A Citizen’s Dissent (Lane), 493 Ciudad Juárez, Battle of, 611 Clark, Mark, 205 Claudius, 67 Clay, Henry, 116, 238 Clement VII (Pope), 326, 327 (sidebar) Cleopatra, 422 Clinton, Bill, 63, 97–99, 113, 304. See also bin Laden, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad Code Name Zorro (Lane), 493

841

842

INDEX

Coeur d’Alene “Dynamite Express,” 547 (sidebar) COINTELPRO (FBI), 206, 284 Collazo, Oscar, 581 Collins, Max Allan, 86 Collins, Michael, Jr., 99–102 Columbus, Christopher, 430 Commodus, 67 Communist International (Comintern), 564 Communist Party of Sri Lanka, 33 Comoros Democratic Union (UDC), 1 Compaoré, Blaise, 511–513 Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, 637 Conan the Barbarian, 24 Congo Crisis (1960–1966), 2–3, 31 Congolese Labour Party, 366, 368 Connally, John, 257–260 Conseil National de la Résistance (the National Council of Resistance) (France), 215 Constans I, 67 Constans II, 67 Constantinescu, Nicolae, 120 Constantinople Conference of 1876–1877, 543 Contreras, Manuel, 289 Controlled Substances Act, 637 Convention of Aguascalientes, 650 Conversations with Americans: Testimony from 32 Vietnam Veterans (Lane), 493 Cooke, Judith, 143 Coptic Christians (Egypt), 5 Corbett, Boston, 293, 295 Corday, Charlotte, 317, 318 Corder, Frank Eugene, 98 Corupedium, Battle of, 517 Cosina, Walter, 56 Costello, Frank, 300 Council of Troubles, 631 Cowart, Daniel, 376–377 Cox, Joseph Neville, 336 Crannon, Battle of, 518

Crimean War, 13, 103, 439, 606 Criminal Procedure Act, 520 Cristero War (Mexico), 381, 383 Croatian Peasant Party (CPP), 11 Crocus Field, Battle of, 424 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 81, 189 Cubas Grau, Raúl, 21 Cubela, Rolando, 81–82 Cuffaro, Salvatore “Totò,” 57 Curry, Izola Ware, 271 Cuzco, Battle of, 430 Czolgosz, Leon, 323–324 Daam, Treaty of (1913), 201 Daily Times (newspaper), 561 Danilo I, Prince of Montenegro, 103–104 Daoud Khan, Mohammed, 16, 104–106, 105 (photo), 558 Darius, 641 Darrow, Clarence, 546 D’Aubuisson, Roberto, 485 Davis, Leon, 316 Davis, Ossie, 315 The Day of the Jackal (Forsyth), 174–175 (sidebar) Dayan, Moshe, 387 de Kock, Eugene Alexander, 399– 400, 521 De Niro, Robert, 468 The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr (Gormley), 98 DeFreeze, David, 155–156 Dehkordi, Nouri, 90 Delgado Chalbaud Gómez, Carlos, 106–107 Deligiannis, Theodoros, 108–109 Demetrius and the Gladiators (movie), 69 Democratic National Convention, 375, 408, 581, 622–624 Democratic United National Front (DUNF), 436 Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man without Qualities) (Arnheim), 460

INDEX

Derby-Lewis, Clive, 208–209 Des Moines Register (newspaper), 545 Despard, Edward, 414 Despoilers of the Golden Empire (film), 430 Dessalines, Jean-Jacques, 109–110 Devi, Phoolan, 111–113, 111 (photo) Di Maggio, Baldassare, 57 Diadumenian, 67 Diary of a Kidnapped Colombian Governor (Gaviria), 176–177 Diawara, Ange, 368 Díaz, Juan Tomás, 576 Díaz Recinos, Adolfo, 508–509 Didius Julianus, 67 Different View (magazine), 486 Dimka, Buka Suka, 331 Dimtolaum, Lt., 569 Ðindić, Zoran, 113–114 Dingane, 522 Dingiswayo, 522–523 Dinulescu, Iosif, 121 Dipendra (Nepalese Prince), 48– 49 Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) (National Intelligence DIrectorate; Chile), 289–290, 290 (sidebar) Djohar, Said, 2 Doe, Samuel Kanyon, 115–116, 567–568. See also Tolbert, William Richard, Jr. Dollfuss., Engelbert, 117–118, 117 (photo) Dominican Civil War (1965), 578 Domitian, 67 Donald, Michael, 279 Doniphan, Alexander, 42 Douglas, William, 241 Downey, Laurence James, 243 Draga Mašin (Serbian Queen), 9 Dubs, Adolph “Spike,” 17, 118–119 Duca, Ion Gheorghe, 69, 120–121, 120 (photo) Duckett, George, 525–526

Dudayev, Dzhokhar Musayevich, 121–123 Duhring, Louis, 318–319, 319 (sidebar) Duhring’s Disease, 318–319, 319 (sidebar) Duke, David, 279 Dulles, Allen, 81, 259, 303 Dungeons & Dragons (role-playing game), 25 Dunlap, Max, 53 Duran, Francisco Martin, 98 Dutch East India Company, 524 Dutch War of Independence, 632 Dwyer, Richard, 492 Earp, James, 125 Earp, Morgan Seth, 125–127 Earp, Virgil, 125–126 Earp, Wyatt, 125–127 Ebrahimzadeh, Hassan, 91 Edict of Beaulieu (France), 218 Edict of Nantes (France), 220 Edict of Poitiers (France), 218 Edmund I (of England), 128–129, 128 (portrait) Edward the Martyr, 129–130 Edwards, Joe, 239 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty, 501 Ehrhardt, Hermann, 462 Eichmann, Adolf, 224, 229, 617 Eicke, Theodor, 481 Eighty Years’ War, 632 Eisenhower, Dwight, 303, 385, 475 Eisner, Kurt, 131–132, 131 (photo) El Combate (newspaper), 438 Elagabulus, 67 Elahi, Cyrus, 89 The Elder Scrolls (video game), 69 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Final Fantasty (role-playing game), 25 Eleftherotypia (Freedom of the Press) (newspaper), 625 Eliot, T. S., 38 Elisabeth of Austria, 132–135, 133 (photo)

843

844

INDEX

Elser, Johann Georg, 227 Emannouilides, Emannouel, 281 Emelyanov, Ivan, 12 Emprise Corporation, 54 Engels, Friedrich, 511 Eric IX (of Sweden), 92, 553 Eric V (of Denmark), 135–136 Eric XIV (of Sweden), 136–137 Erim, Ismail Nihat, 138–140, 138 (photo) Erlander, Tage, 397–398 Erzberger, Matthias, 460 Escobar, Pablo, 401– 402 Esfandiari, Fereshteh, 90 España trágica (Spanish Tragedy) (Galdós), 440 Espinoza Bravo, Pedro, 289 Espionage Act of 1917, 547 Essawy, Mustafa, 309–310 ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, “Basque Homeland and Freedom”), 40–41, 76–77 Evers, Medgar Wiley, 140–142, 279. See also Ku Klux Klan Evil Star (Horowitz), 430 Ewart-Biggs, Christopher Thomas, 142–144 “Executive Action” (CIA), 304 (sidebar), 493 Executive Action (Lane), 493 extermination camps (World War II), 224 Fada’iyan-e Islam (Crusaders of Islam), 464 Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz Saud, 145–146 Faisal II of Iraq, 146–148, 147 (photo) Falcón, Ramón Lorenzo, 148–150 Falcone, Giovanni, 56, 57 The Fall of the Romanovs and Rasputin, the Black Monk (film), 459 The Family (Puzo), 55 Faranda, Adriana, 337 FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), 176–177, 401– 402

Färlev, Battle of, 210 Farrakhan, Louis, 315–316 Farrokhzad, Fereydoun, 90 fascism, 348 (sidebar) Fatima Bint Muhammad (Salim), 505 FBI Counterintelligence programs (COINTELPRO), 206, 284 FBI War on the Black Panther Party (BPP), 207 (sidebar) February Incident (1936), 557 February Manifesto (Finland), 51 February Revolution (1917; Russia), 270, 458 Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act, 488 Federal Security Service (FSB) (Russia), 297, 320–321, 503–504 Federazione Anarchica Italiana, 325 Feodorovna, Alexandra, 370, 457– 458 Feodorovna, Maria, 411 Ferdinand, Franz, 264, 563 Fernández y Krohn, Juan María, 242 Ferreira do Amaral, Joao Maria, 150–151 Ferrell, Arch, 408 Ferrer i Guàrdia. Francesc, 71 Fiery Cross (newsletter), 623 Filipe, Luis, 73 Finnish Civil War of 1918, 475 Firouzi, Shahpour, 89 First Chechen War, 122, 249, 321, 503 First Gulf War, 505 First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups (GRAPO) (Spain), 41 The First Templar (role-playing game), 25 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry (Rough Riders), 488 Fischer, Hermann, 460, 462 Florianus, 67 Folkerts, Knut, 60 Follet, Ken, 38 Foote, Alexander, 227 Ford, Gerald Rudolph, Jr., 152–154, 152 (photo), 259, 260, 304

INDEX

Ford, Thomas, 532 Forrest, Nathan Bedford, 278 Forsyth, Frederick, 174–175 Des Forverts (The Forward) (newspaper), 574 Foster, Jodie, 467 Foster, Marcus Albert, 155–156 Four Nights in Knaresborough (Webb), 38 Francis, John, 604 Frankfurter, David, 226 Franklin, Joseph Paul, 480 Franz Ferdinand, 156–159, 157 (photo), 263 Free Patriotic Movement (Lebanon), 331 Freedom and Justice Party (Egypt), 5 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (1994; U.S.), 195 Freedom of Information Act (U.S.), 287 FRELIMO (Liberation Front of Mozambique), 333–334 French Fédération Anarchiste, 325 French Wars of Religion, 219–220, 250 Fromme, Lynette “Squeaky,” 152–153 Front de libération du Québec (FLQ: Liberation Front of Quebec), 282–284, 284 (sidebar) Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU), 358–359 Fuller, Albert, 408 Gacha, Rodríguez, 401 Gaddafi, Muammar, 161–163, 162 (photo), 204, 566, 570–571 Gagnon, Charles, 285 Galba, 67 Gallic Wars (58–52 BCE), 66 Gallienus, 67 Gallinari, Prospero, 337 Gallus, 67 Galman, Rolando, 18 Gamarra, Agustín, 39 Gandhi, Indira Priyadarshini, 164–165 Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, 165–167, 166 (photo), 176, 272 Gandhi, Rajiv Ratna, 167–169, 400

Garalov, Zakir, 494 García, Rutilio Grande, 484 García y Moreno y Morán de Buitrón, Gabriel Gregorio Fernando José María, 169–171 Garfield, James Abram, 171–173, 172 (photo) Garrett, Silas, III, 408 Gartrell, Tharin, 376 Garun (Spring) (periodical), 513 Garvey, Marcus, 313 Gashimov, Anar, 494 Gat, Julien, 303 Gaulle, Charles André Joseph Marie de, 40, 143, 173–175, 216 Gaviria Correa, Guillermo, 176–177 Gavras, Constantinos, 282 (sidebar) Geegan Khan, Emperor Yingzong of Yuan, 177–178 Geisel, Raymond H., 375–376 Gelfman, Gesia, 13 General Electric Theater (TV show), 466 Geneva Accords, 425 Genghis Khan, 352, 445 Genoa Conference, 357 George I of Greece, 179–180, 179 (photo), 325 Gérard, Balthasar, 630 Gersdorff, Rudolf von, 228 Gerstenmaier, Eugen, 227 Gestapo (“secret state police” of Germany), 41, 69–70, 222, 223, 226–227, 481, 617–618 Geta, 67 Ghaderi, Abdollah, 88 Ghaderi, Mohammad, 90 Ghassemlou, Abdulrahman, 88 Ghent, Treaty of, 238 Ghorbani, Ali-Akbar, 90 Gibbons, Francisco, 473 Gibson, Violet, 345–346 Gilligan, John, 186–188 Glasnost (openness), 514, 656 Glorious Revolution (1688), 72, 440 Gnassingbé, Étienne Eyadéma, 384, 386

845

846

INDEX

Göbel, Wolfgang, 59 Godoi, Don Juan Silvano, 35 Godse, Nathuram Vinayak, 165, 167 Goebbels, Joseph, 216, 347, 618 Goebel, William Justus, 181–182 Golden Voice of Africa. See Balewa, Abubakar Tafawa Golizadeh, Abbas, 90 Göllheim, Battle of, 7 González, Pablo, 650 González Dubón, Eduardo Epaminondas, 183–184 González Martin, Yolanda, 40– 41 Good Friday Agreement (Ireland; 1988), 344 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 513, 656 Gore, Al, 63 Göring, Hermann, 223, 227–228, 462 Gormley, Ken, 98 Gorriarán Merlo, Enrique, 535, 538 Gothic 3 (role-playing game), 25 Gotzamanis, Sypryo, 281 Goulart, João Belchior Marques, 184–186 Gowon, Yakuba “Jack” Dan-Yumma, 233, 331–332 Gqokli Hill, Battle of, 523 Graciano, Fabian, 20 Grahovac, Battle of, 103 GRAPO (First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups) (Spain), 41 Gratians, 67 Graves, Robert, 69 “The Great Star of the East.” See Amin, Hafizullah Greco, Giuseppe “Pino,” 95–96 Greco-Turkish War (1897), 179, 529 Greek Civil War (1946–1949), 281 Greek War of Independence, 417 The Green Book (Gaddafi), 162 Grey Wolves organization, 242 Griffin, Michael Frederick, 193–195 Group Areas Act, 602 Grynszpan, Herschel Feibel, 616–618 Guajardo, Jesús Maria, 649

Guerin, Veronica, 186–188, 187 (photo) Guevara, Ernesto “Che,” 81, 188–190, 245, 511–512, 628 Guinness, Walter Edward, 190–192, 191 (photo) Guiteau, Charles Julius, 171, 172 Gulnabad, Battle of, 352 The Gun of Zangara (movie), 86 Gunn, David, 193–195, 193 (photo) Gunnarsson, Victor, 399 Gustav III of Sweden, 195–197 Gustloff, Wilhelm, 226 Guyana: Crime of the Century (film), 493 Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (film), 493 Guzeva, Khionia, 458 Ha Minh Tri, 364 Habyarimana, Juvénal, 199–201, 200 (photo), 591–593 Hacienda Maria Massacre, 576 Haddad, Effat, 90 Hadzhimuradov, Viskhan, 320 Ha’eri, Javad, 88 Hague Peace Conference (1899), 370 Haider, A.T.M., 341 Hajizadeh, Hamid, 91 Hakim, Eliyahu, 190, 192 Halem, Nikolaus von, 228 Halloween Massacre (Angola), 96–97 Hamidaddin, Yahya Muhammad, 201–202 Hamilton, James, 548, 550 Hamilton, William, 604–605 Hammarskjöld, Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl, 202–204, 203 (photo), 602. See also Lumumba, Patrice Émery Hampton, Fred, 205–207, 205 (photo) Hamshari, Mahmoud, 387 Hani, Martin Thembisile “Chris,” 208–209 Hanrahan, Edward, 205, 206–207 Haq, Abdul, 441– 442 Harald IV of Norway, 209–210

INDEX

Harrelson, Charles Voyde, 638 Harrelson, Woody, 638 Harris, Emily “Yolanda,” 156 Harrison, Carter Henry, Sr., 211–212 Harrison, George, 286 Hassan Mansouri, Mohammad, 88 Hassanpour Sharifzadeh, Alireza, 88 Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II (TV movie), 486 Hayer, Talmadge (aka Thomas Hagan), 312, 316, 317 Haymarket Riot, 211, 212 (sidebar) Hazara, Abdul Khaliq, 354 Hearst, Patricia, 155 Heiligerlee, Battle of, 632 Heinz, F. W., 227 Hellboy (film), 459 Hennessy, David C., Jr., 213–215 Henriksson, Magnus, 552–553 Henriot, Philippe, 215–216 Henry I of France, 218 Henry II of England, 36–37 Henry III of France, 217–218, 217 (portrait), 219, 633 Henry IV of France, 218, 219–220 Henry the Young (King of England), 35, 37 Hernandez, Hank, 267 Herold, David, 292–293 Herrhausen, Alfred, 61 Herri Batasuna (“Unity of the People”) organization (Spain), 41 Heureaux Lebert, Ulises, 220–222 Heydrich, Reinhard Tristan Eugen, 222–225, 223 (photo), 481 Hill, A. W., 24 Hill, Paul Jennings, 195 Himmler, Heinrich, 223, 226, 228, 481 Hinckley, John Warnock, Jr., 465– 469, 624 Hirsch, Helmut, 226–227 Hispanic Brown Berets, 206 Hispano-Moroccan War, 439 History Bites (To Boldly Go) (TV show), 430

History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus (Herodian), 28 History of the Persians (Ctesias), 534 History of the Russian Revolution (Trotsky), 575 Hitler, Adolf, 4, 59, 69, 118, 132, 223–224, 225–229, 226 (photo), 301, 346–347, 376, 462, 475, 479, 481– 483, 542, 615, 618 Ho Chi Minh, 363–364 Holliday, John “Doc,” 125–127 Holocaust (World War II), 70 Holzapfel, Floyd “Lucky,” 93–94 Hoover, J. Edgar, 81, 207, 258–259, 313 Horn, Claes Fredrik, 196 Hossein Naghdi, Mohammad, 90 Hosseinpour, Khaled, 89 House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), 575 House of Karađorđević (Serbian Ruling House), 10 House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), 275–276 Household, Geoffrey, 225 How to Get Out or Stay Out of the Insane Asylum (Rockwell), 478 Hryniewiecki, Ignacy, 12 Hubertusburg, Treaty of, 416 Huda, Mohammad Bazlul, 15 Huda, Najmul, 341 Hudaybiyyah, Treaty of, 586 Huerta, Victoriano, 75–76, 307–309, 308–309, 381–382, 381–383, 611, 650 Hufvudstadsbladet (newspaper), 475 Hughes–Ryan Act, 492 Hunanyan, Nairi, 513–514 Hunayn, Battle of, 586 Hunter (Pierce), 480 Hurst, Randolph, 153–154 Hussain Ershad, Muhammad, 456 Hussein (Jordanian King), 147

847

848

INDEX

Hussein, Saddam, 27, 28, 63, 149, 321, 349, 505 Hydaspes, Battle of, 518 I, Claudius novel (Graves), 69 I Killed Rasputin (film), 459 Iamandi, Victor, 121 Ibn al-Khashshāb, Abu’l-Fadl, 24 Idiarte Borda, Juan Bautista, 231–232 Ige, James Ajibola Idowu, 232–233 Immorality Amendment Act, 602 Imperial Military Academy, 557 Imperium Nerone (TV series), 69 Indemnity Act, 455 Independence Front (FI), 566 Indian Independence Act, 454 Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), 436 Inejiro Asanuma, 234–235 Infamous Weapons, 263 (sidebar) Infante, William, 401 Infinity (role-playing game), 25 Ingavi, Battle of, 39 Innocent III (Pope), 422 Insalaco, Giuseppe, 57 Insanity Defense Reform Act (1984), 468 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, 626–627 Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), 11, 541–542 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), 72, 108, 370 International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (UNICTR), 591, 593 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 512 Iranian Revolutionary Guard, 89 Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), 321–323 Irish Republican Army, 100, 101 (sidebar), 143 Irish War of Independence, 101 Iron Guard (Romanian political movement), 70, 120–121 Irrintzi terrorist group (Spain), 41

Irurzun, Hugo, 535 Iskra (The Spark) (newspaper), 573 Islam, Syed Nazrul, 14 Islamic International Brigade, 321, 503 Islamic Jihad (Egypt), 499 Islamic Movement of Turkestan (IMT), 647 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), 645–646 Islamic Republican Party (IRP), 27 Islamic Revolution (1978–1979), 27, 504 Islamic Salvation Front (ISF), 58–59 Israel Defense Forces (IDF), 387, 448 Ita Ybaté, Battle of, 34 Italian War (1499–1504), 55 Ivan the Terrible, 400 Jack the Ripper, 38, 606 Jackson, Andrew, 237–238 Jackson, Wharlest, Sr., 239 Jail Killing Day (Nov. 3; Bangladesh), 15 Jalula, Battle of, 586 James I, King of Scots, 240–241, 240 (portrait) James II, King of Scots, 241 Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People’s Liberation Front), 436 January 6th Dictatorship. See Alexander I of Yugoslavia January Events (Lithuania), 320 January Uprising (1863–1864), 13 Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal (National Socialist Party), 455 Javadi, Bahman, 88 Jayamanna, Janaka Priyanka, 437 Jayawardena, H. P., 34 Jedvardsson, Erik, 552 Jemmingen, Battle of, 632 Jewish Defense League (JDL), 250, 251 (sidebar) Jim Crow era (U.S.), 141, 155, 293, 335 John Birch Society (JBS), 467, 623 John Paul II, 241–243, 486

INDEX

Johnson, Lyndon, 82, 141, 257–258, 262, 265, 272, 275, 467, 623, 626 Johnson, Nathan, 376 Johnson, Thomas 15X, 312 Jones, James, 492 Jonestown Massacre, 491 Judge Dredd (comic strip), 69 Julius Nepos, 67 Justinian II, 67 Kabarebe, James, 247 Kabila, Laurent-Désiré, 245–247. See also Lumumba, Patrice Émery Kadyrov, Akhmad Abdulkhamidovich, 122–123, 247–249, 248 (photo), 502 Kahane, Meir, 46, 249–252, 250 (photo) Kalantari, Firouzeh, 91 Kamangar, Sadiq, 89 kaMpande, Cetshwayo, 524, 526 Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), 564, 566 Kanak Liberation Party, 565 Kane and Abel novel (Archer), 86 Kapend, Eddy, 245 Kapodistrias, Ioannis Antonios, 252–253 Kapuuo, Clemens, 254–255 Karakozov, Dmitry, 13 Karnal, Battle of, 353 Karol, una papa rimastouomo (film), 486 Karume, Sheikh Abeid Amani, 255–256 kaSenzangakhona, Dingane, 524 Kasereka, Rashidi, 245 Kashefpour, Ali, 89 Kazemi, Abdolaziz, 91 Kazemi, Gholam-Hossein, 90 Kelly, Terence Edward, 378 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 82, 153, 257–263, 257 (photo), 275–276, 366, 380, 385, 492– 493, 638–639 Kennedy, Robert Francis, 81, 264–269, 325

Keraunos, Ptolemy, 517–519 Kermani, Mirza Reza, 8–9 Kern, Erwin, 460 Keshavarz, Faramarz, 91 Keshavarz, Gholam, 88 Khalq (Masses) (newspaper), 558 Khalturin, Stepan, 13 Khan, Ayub, 15 Khan, Hulagu, 24 Khan, Shahriar Rashid, 15 Khasavyurt Accord (1996), 122, 248, 321, 503 Khlysty (flagellants), 457– 458 Khomeini, Ahmad, 90 Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, 27, 90, 465 Khotyn, Battle of, 392 Khoyski Isgender oglu, Fatali Khan, 269–271 Khyber, Mir Akbar, 558 Kibalchich, Nikolai, 13 Kikadidi, Barthélemy, 367–368 Kiley, Richard, 409 Kim Jaegyu, 403, 406 Kimathi, Dedan, 396 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 176, 207, 261, 263, 271–277, 279, 314, 315, 478, 493 Kissinger, Henry, 288, 498, 516 Klar, Christian, 60–61 Kleist-Schmenzins, Eward-Heinrich von, 228 Knatchbull, Doreen, 342 Knights of the Temple (role-playing game), 25 Knute Rockne, All American (film), 466 Kōmoto Daisaku, 652 Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), 403– 405 Korean People’s Army (KPA), 405 Korean War, 18, 52, 203, 239, 406, 477, 583 Kovács, Gyula, 563 Ku Klux Klan (KKK), 140–141, 194, 239, 261, 271, 275, 277–279,

849

850

INDEX

293–294, 313, 316, 336, 408, 467, 479, 582, 599, 622–623 Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), 88 Kvlividze, Zurab, 62 La Guardia, FIorello, 300 Ladislaus IV (Hungarian King), 6 Lambrakis, Grigoris, 281–282 L’Amour, Louis, 24 Lane, Mark, 493 (sidebar) Language Manifesto (Finland), 51 Lansky, Meyer, 300, 301 Lanz, Karl Hubert, 228 Laporte, Pierre, 282–285, 283 (photo) Lara, Jacobito, 220 Larue-Langlois, Jacques, 285 Law 53 of 1948 (Gag Law), 581 Lawrence, Richard, 237 League of Free Social Constructors (Korea), 325 Lechfeld, Battle of, 629 Lee, John Doyle, 533 Legend of the Burning Sands (role-playing game), 25 Lékai, János, 563 Lemieux, Robert, 285 Lena, Battle of, 93 Lenin, Vladimir, 372, 511, 573–575 Lennon, John Winston, 285–287, 286 (photo) Leo V, 67 Leontios, 67 Letelier Del Solar, Marcos Orlando, 288–291 Lex Gabinia, 434 (sidebar) Libby, Lewis, 627 Liberal Regenerator Party (Portugal), 74 Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO), 333 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 168, 435– 437 Lima, Salvo, 57 Lincoln, Abraham, 291–295 Little, Malcolm. See Malcolm X

Little, Russell, 155–156 Litvinenko, Alexander Valterovich, 295–298, 514 Liu, Henry, 298–299 Livatino, Rosario, 57 Lobos al Anochecer (Wolves at Dusk) (Guardia), 474 Lohamei Herut Israel (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), 580 Loi, Emanuela, 56 Lojacono, Alvaro, 337 London Times (newspaper), 606 Long, Huey Pierce, Jr., 299–301, 300 (photo) Longtan, Battle of, 654 Lopetegui Carrasco, Juan, 40 Lortie, Bernard, 285 Louis VII (of England), 36 Louis VII (of France), 36 Lucania, Salvatore, 474 Lucetti, Gino, 346 Lucka, Battle of, 7 Lugovoi, Andrei, 296 Lumumba, Patrice Émery, 204, 245, 302–305 Luna, Octavio Ortiz, 485 Luwum, Janani Jakaliya, 16, 16 (photo), 305–306 (photo) Lynch, Cynthia, 279 MacArthur, Douglas, 478, 583 MacLaine, Shirley, 399 MacLean, Roderick, 605 Macoveanu, Aristide, 121 Macrinus, 67 Madame Nhu, 365 (sidebar) Madani, Ahmad, 88 Madero González, Francisco Ignacio, 307–309 Mafia crime organization, 56–57, 81, 94–95, 213–215, 262–263, 268, 339 Magnus II (of Sweden), 92 Maher Pasha, Ahmed, 309–310 Maïnassara, Ibrahim Baré, 311–312

INDEX

Majdanek extermination camp, 224 Mala, Fadal, 88 Malcolm X, 312–317, 312 (photo), 525 Malloum, Félix, 571–572 Manglares, Battle of, 429 Manhattan Project, 583 Manson, Charles, 152, 154, 469 Manson Family, 154 (sidebar) Mansour Moqadam, Kamran, 89 Manzanas González, Melitón, 41 Manzoor, Abul, 456 Marambio, Roberto Viaux, 515 Marat, Jean-Paul, 317–320, 318 (portrait) Maraycalla, Battle of, 430 Marcos, Ferdinand, 17–18 Marcos, Imelda, 19 Marian Civil War, 549 Marinebrigade Ehrhardt (Free Corps), 460 Marinescu, Gabriel, 121 Marx, Karl, 511 Mašin, Nikodije, 9–10 Mašin, Nikola, 10 Maskhadov, Aslan Aliyevich, 248–249, 320–321, 503 Mason-MacFarlane, Noel, 227 Massamba-Débat, Alphonse, 367 Matiauda, Alfredo Stroessner, 22 Mau Mau Rebellion, 396 (sidebar) Maurice I, 67 Mavromichalis, Konstantinos, 252, 253 Maxha Hienghen (Raise Your Head), 565 Maximinus Thrax (Maximus I), 28–29, 67 Maxwell, Paul, 342 “May Laws” (1882; Russia), 13 “May Overthrow” (of Albert I), 9 Mazlouman, Reza, 91 McCall, William, 336 McCarthy, Joseph, 478, 598 McCartney, Paul, 286 McGlinchey, Dominic, 321–323 McGovern, George, 624

McKinley, William, Jr., 72, 182, 316, 323–326, 324 (photo), 487– 488, 490, 545, 590 McMahon, Thomas, 344 McParland, James, 546 McVeigh, Timothy, 279, 480 McVey, Joseph Sean, 378 Medellín Cartel, 401– 402, 402 (sidebar) Medici, Giuliano de’, 326–328 Medici, Lorenzo de’, 327 Medieval II: Total War (role-playing game), 25 Meehan, Brian, 186 Mein Kampf (Hitler), 478 Meinhof, Ulrike, 59 Meir, Golda, 386–388, 390, 449 Meléndez, Carlos, 21 Melgar Marquez, José, 506 Mengele, Josef (“Angel of Death”), 22, 229 Menostanes, 534 Mercader del Río, Jaime Ramón, 572, 575 Metcalfe, George, 239 Mexican Anarchist Federation, 325 Mexican Revolution, 611 Mhlangana, 522 Mhlatuze River, Battle of, 523 MI5 (Great Britain’s Security Service), 163, 204 Michael III, 67 Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar (Verne), 14 Mikhaylov, Timofey, 13 Milan I (of Serbia), 9 Milk, Harvey, 339 Millen, Francis, 605–606 Miller, Brian Dean, 378 Milonia Caesonia, 68 Miloševic, Slobodan, 113–114 Missaqi, Shahrokh, 87 Mississippi “Freedom Summer,” 141 (sidebar) Mithridates VI of Pontus, 433– 434

851

852

INDEX

Mitrione, Daniel Anthony, 267, 328–330 Mlangeni, Catherine, 521 Moawad, René, 330–331 Mobinzadeh, Jalal, 90 Modern Neo-Nazi groups, 480 (sidebar) Moffitt, Ronni, 288 Mohammad, Vali, 88 Mohammadi, Ali Akbhar, 88 Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh, 242 Mohammed, Murtala Ramat, 331–333, 332 (photo) Mohnhaupt, Brigitte, 60 Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization (MIRO), 87, 90, 91 Mollahzadeh, Molavi Abdul-Malek, 91 Monavat, Mir, 87 Mondlane, Eduardo Chivambo, 333–334 Monfared, Ahmadhamed, 88 Mongoose Gang (Grenada), 49 Monroe Doctrine, 489 Monseñor, the Last Journey of Óscar Romero (film), 486 Moody, Walter Leroy, Jr., 599–600 Mookerheyde, Battle of, 632 Moore, Harry Tyson, 279, 335–336. See also Ku Klux Klan Moradi, Aziz, 87 Moretti, Mario, 338 Mormon Wars, 533 (sidebar) Moro, Aldo, 336–339, 337 (photo) Morrill Act of July 1862, 533 Morris, Frank, 239 Morsi Isa El-Ayyat, Mohamed, 5 Morucci, Valerio, 337–338 Moruzov, Mihail, 121 Moscone, George Richard, 339–341 Mosharraf, Khaled, 15, 341–342, 457 The Motorcycle Diaries (Guevara), 189 Mount Chimborazo, Battle of, 430 Mountbatten, Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George, 342–344

Mouvement National Congolais (MNC; Congolese National Movement), 302–303 Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (Revolutionary Nationalist Movement) (MNR), 615–616 Mpolo, Maurice, 302 Mubarak, Hosni, 5 Mudd, Samuel, 292–293, 294 (sidebar) Muerte a Secuestradores (Death to Kidnappers), 402 Muhammad, Elijah, 313–315, 479 mujahideen uprisings (Afghanistan), 16–17, 46, 441 Muli, Vincenzo Li, 56 Mun Segwang, 405 Münchener Post (secret handbook), 461 Munich (film), 390 Munich Olympics massacre, 388 Munich Post (newspaper), 482 Muradi, Abdul-Ali, 91 Murder in the Cathedral (Eliot), 38 Musharraf, Pervez, 44– 45 Muslim Brotherhood, 4, 5, 310, 500 Mussolini, Benito Amilcare Andrea, 11, 118, 344–348, 345 (photo), 590, 614 Muttahida Qaumi Movement (Pakistan), 44 The Mysterious Cities of Gold (TV series), 430 Nabavi Tavakoli, Ali, 88 Nabavi Tavakoli, Noureddin, 88 Nāder Shāh Ahshār, 351–353 Nadir Shah, Mohammed, 353–355 Nahāvand, Battle of, 586 Nahavandi, Pirouz, 585 Narodnaya Volya (“People’s Will”), Russian Revolutionary Group, 12 Narou’i, Delaviz, 90 Narou’i, Heybatollah, 90 Narutowicz, Gabriel, 355–357 Nashe Slovo (Our Word) (newspaper), 574

INDEX

Nashville (film), 624 Nasi, Joseph, 192 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 5, 148, 500, 502 Nasser, Kamal, 387 Nation of Islam (NOI), religious sect, 207, 312–317, 316 (sidebar) National Assembly (Armenia), 513–514 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 140–141, 206, 239, 279, 335, 598, 622 National Committee of Defense against Communism (NCDAC) (Guatemala), 79 National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), 31 National Council of Resistance of Iran, 90 National Democratic Party (El Salvador), 21 National Guard (Nicaragua), 535–536 National Liberation Front (NLF; Algeria), 58 National Liberation Front of Chad (FROLINAT), 569–570, 572 National Movement for the Cultural and Social Revolution (MNRCS), 571 National Renaissance Front (Romania), 69 National Resistance Movement of Iran, 89 National Revolutionary Council (Russia), 367 National Socialist White People’s Party (NSWPP), 479– 480 National States Rights Party (NSRP), 262, 275, 478 National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), 96–97, 247 National Union of Ethical Citizens (Paraguay), 22 National Vanguard (Italy), 78 Nauvoo Expositor (newspaper), 530

Nazi Party (Germany), 59, 70, 118, 132, 191, 216, 346 Ndadaye, Melchior, 357–361 Ndwandwe–Zulu War, 523 Nemzeti Munkapárt (National Party of Work), 562 Nepalese Congress Party, 48 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 450 New Democratic Party (NDP), 405 New Jewel (Marxist) Movement (Grenada), 49 New Nation-Populist (Erim), 139 New Orleans, Battle of, 238 New York Times (newspaper), 73, 98, 148, 214, 222, 315, 409, 471, 479, 544, 627, 694–696, 706–708 News International (newspaper), 645 Newsweek (magazine), 472 Ngo Dinh Diem, 361–366, 362 (photo). See also Kennedy, John F. Ngouabi, Marien, 366–368 Nhu, Madame, 365 (sidebar) Nicaragua Betrayed (Somoza), 537 Nicephoros II, 67 Nicholas and Alexandra (film), 459 Nicholas II, 51, 369–373, 369 (photo), 457– 458, 574. See also Alexander II of Russia Nicholas II (Russian Czar), 51 Nicolau de Mesquita, Vicente, 151 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 24 Niewiadomski, Eligiusz, 356–357 Nigerian Civil War, 333 (sidebar) Nikolaevich, Alexei, 457 Nile, Battle of, 66 Niš, Treaty of, 541–542 Nitti, Frank “The Enforcer,” 85–86 Nitti: The Enforcer (movie), 86 Nixon, Richard, 80, 152–153, 159, 269, 275, 286–288, 455, 467, 624, 626, 637 Nobel Peace Prize, 177, 333, 370, 450, 489– 490, 501, 568 North, Oliver, 498

853

854

INDEX

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 113, 161, 443, 583 Northern Islander (newspaper), 550 Nosair, El Sayyid, 46, 252 Noumazalayewas, Ambroise, 367 Nový Èas (newspaper), 597 Novy Mir (New World) (newspaper), 574 Nowhere-Land (Hill), 24 Ntaryamira, Cyprien, 360 Ntuyahaga, Bernard, 591 Nzeogwu, Chukwuma Kaduna, 3 OAAU (Organization of Afro-American Unity), 312, 314, 317 Obama, Barack Hussein, II, 5, 304, 375–380 Obasanjo, Olusegun, 233 Obregón Salido, Álvaro, 381–383, 612–613. See also Villa, Francisco “Pancho” O’Connor, Arthur, 605 October Crisis (1970; Canada), 284 October Revolution (1917), 51 O’Ferrell, Robert Wayne, 598–600 Ofumbi, Charles Oboth, 305 Okamoto, Vincent, 426 Okito, Joseph, 302 Okotie-Eboh, Festus, 30 O’Laughlen, Michael, 292, 293 Old Testament’s Book of Ezra (Ezra), 642 Oliveira, Juscelino Kubitschek de, 184 Ollantaytambo, Battle of, 430 Olympio, Sylvanus Epiphanio, 384–386, 384 (photo) On the Genealogy of Morality (Nietzsche), 24 On the Waterfront (film), 409 Ono, Yoko, 285–286 Ons, Emir, 444 Operation Ajax (Britain/USA), 464 Operation AM/BLOOD (CIA), 81 Operation Badr (Egypt), 499 Operation Barisal (Pakistan), 455 Operation Bayonet (Israel), 387

Operation Blue Star (India), 164 Operation Cactus (India), 168 Operation Chaos (CIA), 287 Operation Gladio (NATO), 242–243, 338, 627 Operation Hummingbird (Germany), 482 Operation Lentil (Russia), 320 Operation Mongoose (CIA), 81 Operation Nemesis (Armenia), 269–270 Operation Neptune Spear, 45 Operation Ogre (Spain), 40 Operation PBFORTUNE (U.S.-Guatemala), 79 Operation PBHISTORY (U.S.-Guatemala), 79 Operation Punishment (1941; Yugoslavia), 12 Operation Reptile (Nicaragua), 535 Operation Searchlight (Pakistan), 454 Operation Southern Watch (Iraq), 63 Operation Storm-333 (1979; Afghanistan), 15–16 Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada), 50 Operation Wrath of God (Israel), 386–390 Operation ZR/RIFLE (CIA), 81 Orchard, Harry, 544, 546 Organisation de l’armée secrète (OAS; Secret Army Organization) (France), 173–175 Organization of African Unity (OAU), 31, 306, 332, 568 Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), 312, 314, 317 Orientación (newspaper), 484 Orlov, Alexei Grigoryevich, 415– 416 Ortega-Hernandez, Oscar Ramiro, 378–379 Oryema, Erinayo Wilson, 305 Osborne, Milton, 426 Oslo Accords, 447, 449 Osman II, 391–392 Oswald, Lee Harvey, 257–259, 261–262, 639

INDEX

Ouko, John Robert, 393–396 Oveissi, Gholam-Ali, 87 Oviedo, Alfonso Navarro, 485 Oviedo Silva, Lino César, 22 Oxford, Edward, 604 Oyugi, Hezekiah, 393 Pact of Espino Negro, 509 Pact of Umar, 587 Pahlen, Peter Alekseyevich, 411 Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), 43– 44, 560 Pakistan’s Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD), 560 Palacios, Rafael, 485 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 386, 447, 502 Palme, Mårten, 399 Palme, Sven Olof Joachim, 397– 400, 398 (photo) Pardo Leal, Jaime, 401– 402 Park Chung-hee, 403– 406, 403 (photo) “Parsley Massacre,” 579 (sidebar) Parti Congolais du Travail (Congolese Party of Labour) (PCT), 367 Party of Socialist Revolution (Algeria), 58 Pasha, Djemal, 530 Pasha, Nazim, 529–530 Passannante, Giovanni, 588 Pate, Robert Francis, Jr., 605 Patler, John, 477 Patria (film), 613 Patriotic Alliance for Change (Paraguay), 22 Patterson, Albert Leon, 406– 409 Patton, George, 407, 612 Paul I of Russia, 409– 412, 410 (portrait) Paul VI (Pope), 336, 390, 501 Pausanias of Orestis, 422 Pavlovich, Dmitri, 456– 457 Pazzi, Francesco de’, 326 Pazzi, Jacopo de’, 327 Peden, Anthony, 379

People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), 16–17, 558 People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), 96–97 People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), 27–28 People’s Republic of the Congo (PRC), 367–368 People’s Revolutionary Government (Grenada), 50 People’s Temple (Guyana), 491– 493 Perceval, Spencer, 412– 415, 413 (portrait) perestroika (restructuring), 513–514, 656 Perez, Fermin, 20 Pérez, Rigoberto López, 538, 540 Perón, Juan, 150, 185–186 Perovskaya, Sophia, 13 Peru-Bolivian Confederation, 39 Peter II Karađorđević, 11–12 Peter III of Russia, 415– 417. See also Paul I of Russia Peter the Great (Peter I), 411, 415– 416 Petliura, Symon Vasylyovych, 418– 420 Petronius Maximus, 67 Pettersson, Carl Gustaf Christer, 397 Pham Phu Quoc, 364 Pharnacyas, 534 Pharsalus, Battle of, 431 The Phenix City Story (film), 408– 409, 409 (sidebar) Philip II (of Spain), 630–633 Philip of Swabia, 420– 422, 421 (portrait) Philip II of Macedon, 422– 425, 423 (portrait), 518 Phillip the Arab, 67 Phocas, 67 Phoenix Program, 425– 427 Pickett, Robert W., 61 The Pillars of the Earth (Follet), 38 Pinkerton National Detective Agency, 214, 545–546

855

856

INDEX

Pinochet, Augusto, 50, 288–290, 289–290, 516 Pitt, William, 413 Pius IX (Pope), 170–171, 294, 589 Pius XII (Pope), 363 Pizarro (Sheridan), 430 Pizarro González, Francisco, 427– 431, 428 (portrait) Plan of Ayala, 649 Plan of Guadalupe, 650 Plan of St. Luis Potosi, 649 Plausible Denial (Lane), 493 Plessis-les-Tours, Treaty of, 633 Pogány, József, 563 Politkovskaya, Anna, 295 La Pologne et la Guerre (Poland and War) relief group, 356 Pompey the Great, 66, 431– 434. See also Caesar, Gaius Julius Poor People’s March (Washington, D.C.), 272 Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), 387, 449 Population Registration Act, 602 Porsuki, Emir, 24 Portsmouth, Treaty of, 371 Potsdam Conference, 583 Powell, Colin, 647 Powell, Lewis, 291–292, 293 Pratt, David, 602 Pravda (newspaper), 574 Premadasa, Ranasinghe, 435– 437, 435 (photo) Prendergast, Patrick, 211 Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act, 602 Prevost, Buisines, 175 Price, Sterling, 42– 43 Prim y Prats, Juan, 438– 440, 439 (portrait) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (feature film), 25 Probus, 67 Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL), 568

Progressive Dissidence party (Portugal), 74 Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 602 Project MKUltra (CIA), 287 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Hitler), 478 Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), 101, 142–143, 323, 343–344 Ptolemy XIII (Egyptian King), 66 Public Enemies (movie), 86 Puná, Battle of, 429 Pupienus Maximus, 67 Purishkevich, Vladimir, 456– 458 Putin, Vladimir, 249 Puzo, Mario, 55 Qadir, Haji Abdul, 441– 443, 442 (photo) Qadri, Malik Mumtaz, 559 Qamaruzzaman, Abul Hasnat Muhammad, 14 Qasim, Abd al-Karim, 147–148 Qazi, Effat, 89 Quipaipan, Battle of, 429 Qutuz, Saif ad-Din, 444– 446 Rabecca, John A., 231–232 Rabiei, Molla Mohammad, 91 Rabin, Yitzhak, 175, 447– 451, 448 (photo) Račić, Puniša, 11 Rada (Council) (magazine), 418 Radama II, 451– 453, 452 (portrait) Radowitzky, Simón, 148–150 Rafiyev, Aydin, 494 Rafi’zadeh, Nareh, 89 Rafsanjani, Ali Akbar Hashemi, 88 Ragunathan, 437 Rahdar, Abdol-Amir, 87 Rahimi, Osman, 91 Rahimi Taqanaki, Esfandiar, 87 Rahman, Matiur, 453 Rahman, Mujibur, 14, 341–342 Rahman, Syed Faruque, 15

INDEX

Rahman, Ziaur, 453– 456, 454 (photo) Rajabi, Zahra, 91 Rajai, Mohammad-Ali, 27–28 Rajaratnam, Thenmozhi “Gayatri,” 167–168 Rajavi, Kazem, 89 Ramanantsoa, Gabriel, 461– 462 Rana, Sher Singh, 111–112 Rapallo, Treaty of, 460– 461 Rasputin (film), 459 Rasputin, Demon with Women (film), 459 Rasputin, Grigori Yefimovich, 371–372, 456– 459. See also Nicholas II Rasputin and the Empress (film), 459 Rasputin: The Mad Monkom (film), 459 Rassoul, Mamoud, 88 Rathbone, Henry, 291 Rathenau, Walther, 460– 462, 461 (photo) Ratsimandrava, Richard, 462– 463 Ravaillac, François, 219, 220 Ray, James Earl, 263, 271, 273–277, 493 Rayo, Faustino, 169–170 Razmara, Sepahbod Haj Ali, 464–465 Reagan, Ronald Wilson, 28, 50, 97, 294, 304, 443, 450, 465– 469, 498, 505, 537, 624 Red Army Faction (RAF), 59–61 “Red Beret” Special Operations Unit (Serbia), 113–114 Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse), 336–339, 338 (sidebar) Reforma, Libertad, Ley y Justicia (Reform, Freedom, Law and Justice), 650 Regional Interrogation Centers (RICs), 425 Regroupement des officiers communistes (Communist Officers’ Group), 512 Reina Barrios, José María, 470– 471 Remeliik, Haruo Ignacio, 471– 473, 472 (photo) Remiro, Joseph, 155–156 Remón Cantera, José Antonio, 473– 475, 474 (photo) Remón–Eisenhower Treaty, 474

Republican and Democratic Movement (MDR), 592 Revolt of 1173–1174, 37 (sidebar) The Revolution Betrayed (1936) (Trotsky), 575 Revolution of 1917 (Russia), 370–372 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), 176–177, 401– 402 Revolutionary Committee of Unity and Action (Algeria), 58 Revolutionary Left (militant Turkish organization), 138 Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N), 625–626 Revolutionary Ukrainian Party (RUP), 418 Reza Chitgar, Hamid, 88 Reza Nakhai, Gholam, 89 Reza Rahmani, Hamed, 91 Rhodesian Bush War (1964–1979), 208 Ribbing, Adolph Ludwig, 196 Riina, Salvatore “Totò” (aka “The Beast”), 57 Rikken Seiyûkai Party (Friends of Constitutional Government), 556–557 Rio da Duvida (“River of Doubt”), 490 The Rise of Catherine the Great (film), 417 Ritavuori, Heikki, 475– 476 Road to Perdition (movie), 86 The Robe (movie), 69 Robinson, Robert E., 597 Rockwell, George Lincoln, 476– 480, 477 (photo) Rockwell, Owen Porter, 532 Rogue Male (Household), 225 Röhm, Ernst Julius Günther, 226, 481– 483. See also Heydrich, Reinhard Tristan Eugen; Hitler, Adolf Rohwedder, Detlev Karsten, 61 role-playing games, 25 Roman Emperors, assassinations of, 67 Romanus, 67 Römer, Josef “Beppo,” 226

857

858

INDEX

Romero (film), 486 Romero y Galdámez, Óscar Arnulfo, 483– 486 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (FDR), 84, 258, 300, 310, 375, 380, 466 Roosevelt, Theodore, 324–325, 486– 490, 487 (photo). See also McKinley, William, Jr. Rose, Jacques, 285 Rose, Paul, 283, 285 Roshia, Kristy Lee, 377 Rosselli, John, 81–82, 269 The Royal Hunt of the Sun (film), 430 Rubin, Yoram, 447 Ruby, Jack, 242, 257, 259, 261, 263 Ruilova, José Toro, 615 Rumsfeld, Donald, 28 Rush to Judgment (Lane), 493 Russian Civil War, 574 Russian Mafia, 29 (sidebar), 296 Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP), 573 Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), 370–371, 489, 555, 653 Russo-Persian War (1804–1813), 270 Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), 417 Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), 180, 529 Rwandan Genocide, 200–201, 593 (sidebar) Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), 592 Rwandan Revolution (1959), 199 Ryan, Leo Joseph, Jr., 491– 493, 491 (photo) Rysakov, Nikolai, 13 Rzayev Gurbanoglu, Rail, 494– 495 Sá Carneiro, Francisco Manuel Lumbrales de, 497– 498 Sabbah, Hassan-i, 23–24 Sabès Pétion, Alexandre, 109 Sabino, Anghenio, 473 Sablin, Nikolai, 13 Sacchi, Li, 94

Sadat, Anwar El, 499–502, 499 (photo) Sadulayev, Abdul-Halim AbuSalamovich, 502–504 Saffar, Javad, 90 Saint-Étienne, Battle of, 407 Salamis, Battle of, 642 Salan, Raoul, 173–174 Salazar López, Mario, 184 Salido, Álvaro Obregón, 610 Salim, Ezzedine, 504–505 Salmon, Christopher, 379 Salomón–Lozano Treaty, 506 Salvador (film), 486 Salviati, Francesco, 327 Salvius, 431 Samper, Ernesto, 402 San Francisco Chronicle (newspaper), 492 Sánchez Cerro, Luis Miguel, 505–507 Sandinista National Liberation Front, 510, 536, 540 Sandino, Augusto Nicolás Calderón, 507–510, 508 (photo). See also Somoza Debayle, Anastasio; Somoza García, Anastasio Sanei, Manouchehr, 91 Sangar, David, 98 Sankara, Thomas Isidore Noël, 511–513. See also Castro Ruz, Fidel Alejandro; Guevara, Ernesto “Che” Sargsyan, Vazgen, 513–515. See also Litvinenko, Alexander Valterovich Sarshar, Hossein, 91 Saudi-Yemeni War (1934), 202 Saur Revolution, 16, 119, 558 Sayem, Abu Sadat Mohammad, 15 Sayyad, Ahmad, 91 The Scarlet Empress (film), 417 Schauman, Eugen, 51 Schinas, Alexandros, 179 Schirru, Michele, 346 Schlesselman, Paul, 376–377 Schleyer, Hanns-Martin, 61

INDEX

Schneider Chereau, René, 515–516 School of the Americas (SOA), 329 (sidebar) Schrank, John Flammang, 487 Schwarzbard, Sholem-Shmuel, 418 Scopelliti, Antonio, 57 Screen Actors Guild (SAG), 466 Second Boer War, 601 Second Chechen War, 248–249, 321, 503 Second Congo War, 246 (sidebar) Second Italian War of Independence, 588 Second Sino-Japanese War, 404 Secondhand Lions (feature film), 25 Seimanpour, Seifollah, 89 Seleucus I, 517–519, 517 (portrait) Separate Representation of Voters Act, 602 September, Dulcie Evonne, 520–521 September 11, 2001 terrorist attack (9/11), 5, 46, 62, 63, 134, 139, 304, 441, 646 Septimius, Lucius, 431 Serav, Treaty of, 391 Serbian Campaign (World War I), 10 Serbo-Bulgarian War, 543 Serrano, Germain, 35 Serse (opera), 642 Seven Years’ War, 416 Seward. William, 291–292 Shafiq, Shahryar, 87 Shahvardilou, Behrouz, 87 Shaka kaSenzangakhona, 522–524, 526 Sharafkandi, Sadeq, 90 Sharia (Islamic law), 587 Sharpeville Massacre, 31, 603 (sidebar) Sharples, Richard Christopher, 525–526 Shermarke, Abdirashid Ali, 526–528, 527 (photo) Shevchenko Scientific Society (publication), 418 Shevket Pasha, Mahmud, 528–530 Shpigun, Gennady, 248 Sicilian Mafia Commission, 95 Silvano Godoi, Don Juan, 35

Silvano Godoi, Nicanor, 34 Silver Dollar Group (KKK faction), 239 Simard, Francis, 285 Simla Agreement, 455 Simmons, William Joseph, 278 Sinan, Rashid ad-Din, 24 Singh, Beant, 164 Singh, Satwant, 164 Sinhala Maha Sabha organization (Sri Lanka), 32–33 Sinn Féin (Workers’ Party of Ireland), 101 Sirhan, Sirhan Bishara, 264–266, 268–269, 287 Sirte, Battle of, 161 Sista kontraktet (The Last Contact), 400 Six Day War of June 1967, 500 638 Ways to Kill (Fidel) Castro (TV documentary), 80 Six Point Movement (1959; East Pakistan), 15 Sixtus IV (Pope), 326, 327–328 Slovenský plynárenský priemysel (Slovak Gas Industry), 596 Slovo (Word) (magazine), 418 Smith, Joseph, Jr., 530–533. See also Strang, James Jesse Sobibor extermination camp, 224 Socialist Party of the Workers (Spain), 40– 41 Society of Muslim Brothers. See Muslim Brotherhood Sogdianus, 534–535 Soilih Mtsashiwa, Ali, 1 Soldier (Herbert), 426 Soloviev, Alexander, 13 Soltysik, Patricia Monique, 156 Somarama, Talduwe, 34 Somoza Debayle, Anastasio, 535–538, 536 (photo). See also Reagan, Ronald Wilson; Sandino, Augusto Nicolás Calderón; Somoza García, Anastasio Somoza García, Anastasio, 79, 507, 535–536, 538–540. See also

859

860

INDEX

Sandino, Augusto Nicolás Calderón; Somoza Debayle, Anastasio Sonnenberg, Günter, 60 South African Communist Party, 208 South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 204, 209, 399, 521.603 South Atlantic Petroleum Limited, 3 Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 141, 207, 272 Soviet People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, 441 Spangler, Edmund, 293 Die Spanier in Peru (von Kotzebue), 430 Spanish-American War, 490 Spartacus, 432 Speer, Albert, 228–229 Spellman, Cardinal Francis, 363 Spencer, Johnny Logan, 377–378 Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SFLP), 33 St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre (France), 217, 219 The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (movie), 86 Stalin, Josef, 122, 297, 320, 459, 564, 572, 574–575, 583 Stamboliyski, Aleksandar, 541–542 Stambolov, Stefan Stambolov, 543–544 Stångebro, Battle of, 137 Starr, Ringo, 286 Stauffenberg, Claus von, 228 Stelescu, Mihai, 121 Stern Gang, 190–192, 580 Steunenberg, Frank, 544–547 Stewart, James, Earl of Moray, 548–550, 548 (portrait) Stewart, Murdoch, 241 Stimson, Henry, 509–510 Strang, James Jesse, 550–552. See also Smith, Joseph, Jr. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 141, 272 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 206

Suárez, Jesús Galíndez, 577 Sugiyama, Masanori, 472 suicide bombings, 47 Sun Yat-sen, 653 SuperFerry bombing (2004) (Philippines), 47 Suppression of Communism Act, 602 Surratt, John, 292, 293, 294 Surratt, Mary, 292, 293 Susskind, David, 581 Sverker I, 552–553 Sverker the Elder (Swedish King), 92 Sword of Gideon (film), 390 Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), 152–153, 155 Tabatabaei, Ali Akbar, 87 Tabouk, Battle of, 586 Tacitus, 67 Tacklyn, Larry, 525–526 Taft, William Howard, 308, 325, 489–490 Tahmasebi, Khalil, 464 Ta’if, Siege of, 586 Taif, Treaty of (1934), 202 Takahashi Korekiyo, 555–557, 556 (photo) Talebi, Ahmad, 88 Taliban, 45–46, 62, 119, 441–443, 561, 645–647 Tandefelt, Knut Ernst Robert, 475 Taraki, Nur Muhammad, 558–559. See also Amin, Hafizullah Taseer, Salmaan, 559–561. See also Bhutto, Benazir Taxi Driver (film), 468, 468 (sidebar), 624 Ten Years’ War (1868–1878), 72 Tet Offensive (1968), 426 Tewid, Leslie, 473 The Strongest Poison (Lane), 493 The Turner Diaries (Pierce), 480 Therapeutic Abortion Act, 467 Thermopylae, Battle of, 643

INDEX

Thich Quang Duc, 365 Third Anglo-Afghan War, 354 Third Mithridatic War, 433 Third Reich (Germany), 59–60, 119, 132, 216, 223, 224, 225, 480, 602, 618 Third Sacred War, 424 “Third Secret of Fatima” (Pope John Paul II), 243 Third Servile War, 432 Thomas, Benjamin, 316 Thomas, Josef, 227 300 Spartans (film), 643 Tiberius III, 67 Tippit, J. D., 263 Tirel, Walter, III, 634 Tisza de Borosjenő et Szeged, István, 562–564. See also Franz Ferdinand Tjibaou, Jean-Marie, 564–567, 565 (photo) Tmetuchl, Melwert, 472 Tmetuchl, Roman, 473 To Proto Thema (newspaper), 627 Tocnaye, Alain de La, 175 Tolbert, William Richard, Jr., 567–569. See also Doe, Samuel Kanyon Tombalbaye, François, 569–572. See also Gaddafi, Muammar Tongmenghui (Chinese United League), 653 Torresola, Griselio, 581 Townley, Michael Vernon, 289 Trabanino Vargas, Antonio, 184 Trade School Act, 407 Traina, Claudio, 56 Tran Le Xuan, 365 Die Transvaler (newspaper), 601 Trapassi, Mario, 94 Traynor, John “The Coach,” 187 Treblinka extermination camp, 224 Trench, Battle of, 586 Triple Entente (France, Britain, Russia), 157–158, 371 Trotsky, Leon, 572–575, 573 (photo). See also Nicholas II

Trotskyite Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Sri Lanka), 33 Trudeau, Pierre, 283 True Detective novel (Collins), 86 Trujillo Molina, Rafael Leonidas, 576–579 Truman, Harry S., 173, 279, 363, 539, 580–584, 580 (photo), 622 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa), 204, 209, 399, 521, 521.603 Tryzub (Trident) (newspaper), 419 Tsafendas, Dimitri, 600–601 Tsankov, Aleksandar Tsolov, 541, 542 Tung Kuei-sen, 299 Tupamaros National Liberation Movement (Uruguay), 328 Turner, William, 267 Turnpaugh, John, 377 Tutu, Desmond, 204 20/20 (TV news program), 473 Twenty-Year Treaty of Friendship, 559 Uhl, Julius, 226 Uhud, Battle of, 586 Ukrainian–Soviet War, 419 Ukrainskayazhizn’ (Ukrainian Life) (magazine), 418 Ulundi, Battle of, 524 Umar ibn Al-Khattab, 585–587 Umberto I, 325, 588–590, 588 (photo). See also McKinley, William, Jr.; Mussolini, Benito Amilcare Andrea Unification of Death society (Serbia), 10 Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), 48 Union for National Progress (UPRONA) (Burundi), 358 United Bamboo Gang (Taiwan), 298 United National Party (UNP; Sri Lanka), 33 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 144

861

862

INDEX

United Nations Commission of Investigation, 203 United Nations Commission on Human Rights, 306 United Nations Emergency Force, 203 United Nations General Assembly, 50, 203, 602 United Nations International Law Commission, 139 United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, 500 United Nations Truth Commission, 329 United Party of Nigeria (UPN), 233 United Tajik Opposition (UTO), 645 The Untouchables (movie), 86 U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), 426 U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group, 45 USS Cole, 46 Uwilingiyimana, Agathe, 591–593. See also Habyarimana, Juvénal Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR), 645 Valente, Henrique da Silva, 73 Valentinian III, 67 Valerie Plame Affair, 627 (sidebar) Valko, Ernest, 595–597, 596 (photo) Vallières, Pierre, 285 Vampire: The Masquerade (role-playing game), 25 Vance, Robert Smith, 597–600. See also Ku Klux Klan; Wallace, George Corley, Jr. VANPAC (FBI Investigation), 598–600 Vargas, Manuel Cepeda, 402 Vasquez Sanchez, Romeo, 78 Vassilikos, Vassilis, 282 (sidebar) Västgötalagen (Westgothic law), 552–553 Velvet Revolution, 595 Verne, Jules, 14 Versailles, Treaty of, 385, 461, 481

Verwoerd, Hendrik Frensch, 600–603, 601 (photo) Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom, 604–606 Victoriano Huerta Márquez, José, 75–76, 307–309, 381–382, 611 Vieira, João “Nino” Bernardo, 606–609 Viet Cong (VC), 364–365, 425–427 Vietnam War, 272, 286, 405, 443 Vilcaconga, Battle of, 430 Villa, Francisco “Pancho,” 76, 308, 382, 610–613, 610 (photo), 649–650. See also Carranza de la Garza, Venustiano; Madero González, Francisco Ignacio; Obregón Salido, Álvaro; Zapata Salazar, Emiliano Villarroel López, Gualberto, 614–616 Vil’na Ukrayina (Free Ukraine) (magazine), 418 Virgilio, Mulatilo, 20 Vitellius, 67 Viva Caligula (video game), 69 Viva Villa! (film), 613 Viva Zapata! (film), 651 Volusianus, 67 vom Rath, Ernst Eduard, 616–619 von der Schulenburg, Fritz-Dietlof Graf, 227 von Hindenburg, Paul, 483 Vorläufi ge Reichswehr (Provisional National Defense), 461 Vratislaus, 628–629 Waie, Na, 606–609 The Walking Drum (L’Amour), 24 Wallace, George Corley, Jr., 598, 621–624, 622 (photo). See also Ku Klux Klan Wallace–Cater Act, 407 Wallenberg, Raoul, 132 Walus, Janusz, 208–209 Wang Hsi-ling, 298–299 Wannsee Conference, 224 (sidebar) War Measures Act (1914), 283, 284–285

INDEX

War of 1812, 238, 414 War of the Fourth Coalition, 417 War of the Triple Alliance (Paraguay; 1864–1870), 34 War on Drugs, 637 Ward, Paul “Hippo,” 186 Warren Commission, 153, 258, 261, 263, 493 Wars of Apostasy, 586 Wars of Religion (France), 219–220, 250 Warsaw Signal (newspaper), 530 Watergate scandal (U.S.), 269, 286, 626 Wéa, Djubelly, 564 Webb, Paul, 38 Welch, Richard Skeffington, 625–628 Wenceslaus I, 628–629 Wentworth, Alexander, 550–551 Western Federation of Miners (WFM), 545 Westminster Abbey, 486 White, Daniel James, 339–341 White Citizens Council, 261 White Citizens’ Council, 623 White Night Riots (San Francisco; 1979), 339 Wicked City (Atkins), 408 Wilkinson, Bill, 279 William I, Prince of Orange, 630–634, 630 (portrait) William II of England, 634–636 Williamson, Craig, 400 Wilson, Henry Lane, 308–309 Wilson, Woodrow, 490, 611 Windsor, Treaty of (1386), 74 Wisniewski, Stefan, 60 Witzleben, Erwin von, 227 Wood, John Howland, Jr., 637–639 Worker-Communism Unity Party of Iran, 88 World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), 512 World Trade Center bombings, 5, 46 World War I, 10, 93, 117, 120, 131, 156–158, 166, 181, 190, 201, 223,

225, 325, 343–345, 348, 356–358, 371–372, 385, 392, 407, 419, 458, 460–461, 481, 530, 541–547, 562–563, 574, 582, 589, 621, 700–703 World War II, 4, 11, 18, 59, 69, 93, 99, 101, 119, 140, 143, 146–147, 167, 191, 216, 224–225, 234, 247, 258, 264, 279, 282, 301, 313, 343, 346–348, 358, 404–407, 462, 466, 472, 476–477, 500, 511, 525–526, 539, 569, 596, 602, 616–618 Wright, Billy, 323 Wu Tun, 298–299 Xerxes I of Persia, 641–643 Yamaguchi, Otoya, 234–235 Yamamah, Battle of, 586 Yazdanpanah, Saeed, 89 Year of the Six Emperors (Rome; 238 CE), 28–29 Yom Kippur War, 568 Young, Brigham, 551 Young Catherine (film), 417 Young Men’s Muslim Association (Egypt), 3–4 Yousef, Ramzi, 242 Yuldashev, Tohir Abduhalilovich, 645–647 Yulyevich, Sergei, 371 Yurovsky, Yakov, 369, 372 Yusupov, Felix, 456–459 Z (Vassilikos), 282 (sidebar) Zabala Suinaga, Lorenzo, 40 Zacatecas, Battle of, 650 Zamboni, Anteo, 346 Zangeneh, Abdul Ahmad, 464 Zapata Salazar, Emiliano, 76, 308, 382, 611–612, 649–651. See also Carranza, Venustiano; Villa, Francisco “Pancho” Zapatista Army of National Liberation, 651 (sidebar)

863

864

INDEX

Zeciu, Vasile, 121 Zeller, André, 173–174 Zepita, Battle of, 38 Zhang Zuolin, 652–654, 652 (photo) Zhelyabov, Andrei, 13 Zia-ul-Haq, Muhammad, 17, 43–44 Zionism, 192 (sidebar), 249, 460 Zolanvar, Ahmad, 87

Zollinger, Edgar, 470 Zongo, Henri, 512 Zoni, Marina, 337 Zorig, Sanjaasuren, 655–656, 655 (photo) Zuhab, Treaty of, 392 Zulu War, 524 (sidebar) Zwaiter, Wael, 387

About the Author

Michael Newton is a full-time freelance writer with 266 books published since 1977 and 15 more scheduled for release from various houses through 2014. Newton’s 74 nonfiction books include 27 reference books, among them the best-selling Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (2nd edition, 2005). In 2002, Newton’s history of the Florida Ku Klux Klan, The Invisible Empire, received the Florida Historical Society’s Rembert Patrick Award as “Best Book in Florida History.” Four years later, the American Library Association ranked his Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology (“hidden” or undiscovered animals) among its 12 Outstanding Reference Books in 2006. Newton has also published 186 novels under his own name and various pseudonyms. In 2010, one of his Westerns—Manhunt, written as “Lyle Brandt”—received the Western Fictioneers’ Peacemaker Award as “Best Western Novel” of the year. For a full list of Newton’s work see his Web site at http://www.michaelnewton.homestead.com.

View more...

Comments

Copyright ©2017 KUPDF Inc.
SUPPORT KUPDF