The Nightmare of Assassinations

The tragedy of this past weekend in which Corey Comperatore was killed, and former President Trump nearly so, illustrates that assassinations are again with us.  This is a brief history of assassinations, motivations and how it applies to war.  

Transcript

The Nightmare of Assassination

July 2024

“Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.”

George Bernard Shaw

“With the Lincoln assassination, the South didn’t feel it could mourn along with the North. But Garfield was beloved by all the American people. He was trusted and respected by the North and South, by freed slaves and former slave owners. Also by pioneers, which his parents had been, and by immigrants.”

Candice Millard

“The unexpected firing of a pistol still caused shock and panic today.” 

Lisa Jardine 

Merriam-Webster Dictionary refers to the verb assassinate, defined as “to injure or destroy unexpectedly and treacherously” or “murder by sudden or secret attack usually for impersonal reasons.”

Assassinations have been rare in recent American history, though certainly not in its entirety.  When a leader such as Benazir Bhutto, a former Pakistani prime minister, was assassinated in 2007 or  Shinzo Abe of Japan, murdered just two years ago, this can seem like something exotic, even foreign to a younger generation of Americans.  That is why the near death, by inches, of Former President and possibly future president Donald Trump should be a shock to the American system.  Assassinations are not something that happens in other nations; they can and have occurred with horrific frequency in our Republic.  

The first assassinations in history, which we will explore, were primarily about political or military change, most often by insiders.  By the time of the Macedonians, the Qin, and the Romans, there was also political change, but often by outside forces, regardless of what Shakespeare might suggest. We will see this when we look at Caesar’s murder.

Then, we will look at modern American history and see the shift in the awful history of assassinations. Those targeting our leaders have almost entirely come from lone, deranged men with mad designs that project themselves as heroes against a foe developed in the fever dreams of their minds.  

Given that the history of assassinations begins 43 centuries ago and brings us to the events of this week, this will not be a comprehensive history but rather a selection of notable assassinations in history and an initial look at broad trends across this heinous practice.  

Mantheo was a historian who lived in the late 300s BCE.  He authored the Aegyptiaca (History of Egypt) in Greek, a primary chronological source for the reigns of the kings of ancient Egypt. It is unclear, but it is believed that he wrote his history and king list during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter. According to Mantheo, a Pharaoh named Teti founder of the Sixth Dynasty. The length of his reign is uncertain. Manetho suggests he was pharaoh for between 30 and 33 years, but most Egyptologists favor a shorter reign or around 12 years. I am beginning with this Pharoah because Teti, who died around 2,300 BCE, may have been the first recording of a ruler being assassinated.  Manetho states that Teti was murdered by his palace bodyguards in a harem-hatched plot.  

Two further ancient Egyptian monarchs are more explicitly recorded to have been assassinated; Amenemhat I of the Middle Kingdom Twelfth Dynasty (20th century BCE) is recorded to have been assassinated in his bed by his palace guards for reasons unknown (as related in the Instructions of Amenemhat); meanwhile contemporary judicial records relate the assassination of New Kingdom Twentieth Dynasty monarch Ramesses III in 1155 BCE as part of a failed coup attempt. 

And it was not just the ancient Egyptians.  Between 550 BCE and 330 BCE, seven Persian kings of the Achaemenid Dynasty, a majority of their number, were murdered. Phillip II of Macedon, just on the verge of invading the Persian empire, was assassinated in October 336 BCE.  While the king was entering into the town’s theatre, he was unprotected to appear approachable to the Greek diplomats and dignitaries who were present at that time. Philip was suddenly approached by Pausanias of Orestis, one of his seven bodyguards, and was stabbed in his ribs. After Philip was killed, the assassin immediately tried to escape and reach his getaway associates, who were waiting for him with horses at the entrance to Aegae.  A brilliant general in his own right, it would be Phillip’s son, Alexander, who would inherit the Macedonian Kingdom and the superlative army built by Phillip and conquer the Persians.  

Teti’s and Phillip’s death provides three historical trends:

1. The disposal of a leader through violent acts.
2. In many instances, the assassins were the same people charged with protecting the ruler.  From Teti to the Praetorian Guard becoming Emperor makers in Rome to the 1984 assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards, it is often those with access, the very protectors, who do the murders.
3. The mentality that rulers would take to prevent such a thing.  

In the case of Gandhi, it was two guards at her Prime Minister’s residence in New Delhi, Constable Satwant Singh and Sub-Inspector Beant Singh, who did the killing.  Beant was one of Gandhi’s favorite guards, whom she had known for ten years. Because he was a Sikh, he had been taken off her staff after Operation Blue Star, an attempt to suppress Sikh militants.  Gandhi mistakenly had made sure that he was reinstated.  Furthering the Gandhi tragedy, Indira’s son Rajiv was murdered by a suicide bombing carried out by a member of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam, a now disbanded Sri Lankan separatist group. 

The use of Assassination in the sub-continent was millennia old. Chanakya (c. 350–283 BC), an Indian teacher, philosopher, and royal advisor, wrote about assassinations in detail in his political treatise Arthashastra. The teacher talked of the “silent war,” “Open war is fighting at the place and time indicated; creating fright, sudden assault striking when there is an error or a calamity, giving way and striking in one place, are types of concealed warfare; that which concerns secret practices and instigations through secret agents is the mark of a silent war.” His student Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Maurya Empire of India, later used assassinations against some of his enemies, including two of Alexander’s generals. 

The word “assassin” derives from a secretive murder cult in the 11th and 12th centuries called the “Hashishin,” meaning “hashish eaters.”  While much of the origin of this cult has been lost, the original leader was Hasan Ben Sabah, a prominent devotee of Isma’ili beliefs, part of the Islamic Shia sect.  

The name itself is from a possible tale (perhaps fabricated by enemies of the Hashishin) to explain how Sabah got his followers to be willing to be sent to their deaths so readily.  There, they were drugged up with hashish and put into a hypnotic state.  After this trance-like state was induced, the men were offered sensual pleasures- beautiful handmaidens and harem girls and made to believe they were in heaven. Or so the rather exotic tale goes.  More than likely, Hasan found the same type of zealous young men who have committed suicidal terror missions in their own time.

In China, the first Emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, survived several attempts on his life.  An ever-growing distrust of his entourage dominated the last years of Qin Shi’s life—at least three assassination attempts nearly succeeded—and his increasing isolation from the common people. Almost inaccessible in his vast palaces, the emperor led the life of a semidivine being until his death, which was by natural causes.

In her piece entitled ‘Caesar’s is the Only Death that Still Reverberates,’ historian Emma Southon notes, “The Ides of March was a bottleneck in Roman history. Before, it was the Republic, and after it came the Principate, under the rule of a single emperor. Julius Caesar was neither the first nor the last leader to be assassinated in Roman history, but his is the only death that still reverberates. The Ides of March left an immediate impact on the Roman historical landscape not just because of Caesar’s unique position as Perpetual Dictator but because it opened the door for his astonishing grand-nephew Octavian (who later renamed himself Augustus) to reshape the entire political world and to look reasonable while doing it.”

Due to the prominence of the Roman Empire, the one thought of every day by a certain kind of male, and Shakespeare, of course, Caesar’s assassination gains a historical prominence up there with Lincoln’s in many American minds.

Caesar was not even the first of the many assassinations that were to take place in the period of conversion from Republic to Empire.  Pompey the Great was murdered by Egyptians hoping to curry favor with Caesar.  The Roman politician and orator Cicero was murdered along with other leading figures.  

Classicist Mary Beard called the assassination of Caesar an “almost bungled murder.” in which “A gang of 20 or so Senators crowded around Caesar on the present handling of a petition.  The assassins were not very accurate in their aim or perhaps terrified into clumsiness,” Yet Beard notes the ettu Brutus” was a Shakespearean invention.  Either way, this heralded the appearance of the hitherto little-regarded Octavius, adopted by Caesar in his will.  Even though many more mature men (Octavius would have been about 19 at Caesar’s death), including Antony, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, and Lepidus, Caesar’s heir trumped them all.  

Because Caesar trusted his fellow Senators were allowed near him, this has the feeling of Teti, but these were not Caesarian bodyguards, but instead political rivals, many of who, such as Brutus and Cassius, had served Pompey in a war against Caesar.  His death was not the case of not seeing it coming but rather a hubris that these one-time “Republicans” would sit by and allow his one-man rule. 

During this podcast, I will be crossing oceans and half the world to see the more prominent aspects of this topic.  Like Caesar, the place in the reader’s mind of the medieval Japanese ninja needs some highlight.  Our culture presents everything for an obstacle course show, using that term as an adjective for any skill that is seen to be extraordinary, such as marketing ninja or, worse, a history ninja.  

A ninja (Japanese: ‘one who is invisible’; or shinobi ‘one who sneaks’; was an infiltration agent, mercenary, or guerrilla warfare and later bodyguard expert in feudal Japan. They were often employed in siege, espionage missions, and military deception. They usually appear in the historical record during the Sengoku period, although antecedents may have existed as early as the 12th century. Following the Tokugawa shogunate in the 17th century, the ninja faded into obscurity.

During the medieval period in Europe, although intentional regicide was an infrequent occurrence, the situation changed dramatically with the Renaissance when the ideas of tyrannomachy (i.e., killing of a King when his rule becomes tyrannical) re-emerged and gained recognition. Several European monarchs and other leading figures were assassinated during religious wars or by religious opponents, for example, Henry III and Henry IV of France, 

Historian Lisa Jardine, in her The Awful End of Prince William the Silent, provides this subtitle: The First Assassination of a Head of State with a Handgun.  Jardine notes,” Most people imagine that handguns and the mayhem they can cause in a moment in the hands of an assassin are a relatively new phenomenon.  As we have seen, that is not the case. Pistols have been used with intent to kill to alter events decisively since the 16th century.”  

In her persuasive book, Jardine documents how the assassination of William the Silent, ruler over the low countries, then fighting for independence against the Spanish Habsburg rulers, changed the course of history for the Dutch, the Spanish, and the English.  

Arguably, the assassination with the most significant impact on events was the murder of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in 1914. It has often been argued that this catalyzes World War I.  I would contend that with six great powers all believing in their ultimate victory, if not for the death of the Archduke, some other calamity might have started the war. But this is speculation.  We know that the assassination did lead directly to the events that caused the death of millions over the next four years and a permanent reordering of Europe and the world.  Europe entered World War I with five monarchies and the French Republic and exited with a depleted France and Britain, a resentful Italy, a wounded Germany, a communist Russia, and a non-existent Austrian Empire. 

Since the attempted assassination attempt on the life of Donald Trump, former President and current GOP nominee for a 2ndterm, we have heard many platitudes about how violence has no place in our politics.  That is an ideal worth striving for, but historically inaccurate.  Unfortunately, our great Republic has seen many, way too many, unsuccessful and successful attempts to end the lives of our leaders.

Many of our presidents have been shot, four fatally, including Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F Kennedy.  Presidents Andrew Jackson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan survived significant assassination attempts (FDR while President-elect, the others while in office). Former President Theodore Roosevelt was shot and wounded during the 1912 presidential campaign. During the Lincoln assassination, there were also attacks planned against current Vice-president Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward, but Johnson’s did not go through, and Seward survived the attack. The attempt on Reagan’s life was in 1981, and since that time, until this past weekend’s attempt on the life of Trump, we have not seen those attempts.  

In 1968, we had two impactful assassinations.  Robert F. Kennedy, who was running for President then, and Martin Luther King Jr. were our most prominent civil rights leaders.  The latter’s death ignited a powder keg of grievance and riots that had lasting impacts.  For example, the city of Detroit has never really recovered from the devastation wrought on the town in April 1968.  

This awful litany of the experiences of American leaders provides an alteration to one motivation I have mentioned.  These murders were tended to be committed by loners with mental issues as opposed to the pure power politics of Teti’s, Phillip II or Caesar’s time.  And this is why Jardine’s introduction of the handgun is so essential.  Except for an arrow, surprisingly little used in pre-modern times, assassins would have to be a few inches from their victims, allowing time for bodyguards to intervene.  John Hinkley, whose attempted assignation of Reagan failed, was 15 feet away from the President when he shot at him, his staffers, and the security detail.  

Hinkley was not motivated by ideological goals but wanted to impress actress Jodie Foster.  And in the case of James Garfield and Gerald Ford, there was also a certain level of madness in the assassin.  Jardine focuses on pistol shots, but what has changed is the advent of the rifle, a device that can inflict a fatal wound from hundreds of yards away and without which the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, would probably have been apprehended before he inflicted near death on the 45th president.  

Trump was the latest victim, but just in the past two years, an ex-prime Minister of Japan experienced this awful fate.  On July 8, 2022, Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister of Japan and a serving member of the Japanese House of Representatives, was shot to death while speaking at a political event. Abe was delivering a campaign speech for a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) candidate when 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami fatally shot him with an improvised firearm. As with American presidential assassinations, Yamagami operated alone, and his motivations are delusional.  

So now we have countermeasures. I will not comment here on the Secret Service’s failures to adequately protect Trump as that is an evolving story likely to have several explanations. However, I will say that using a permanent security team was unfamiliar to presidents of the first 100 years of the Republic. 

At the time Lincoln was killed, he was among the first to employ a full-time bodyguard, which was a wartime exigency.  During Jackson’s presidency, a civilian could have wandered into the White House nearly immediately.  Lincoln’s protective measures were inadequate, which is a gross understatement.  Even after Garfield’s assassination, there was no formal protective organization. 

It was only after the assassination of President McKinley in 1901 that the Secret Service was tasked with the full-time protection of the President of the United States.  Over time, this protective mission has been expanded by statutory changes, Presidential Decision Directives, Homeland Security Presidential Directives, National Security Presidential Directives, and various Executive Orders.  The uniformed division protects the White House Complex and the Naval Observatory. The nonuniformed group protects the President, Vice President, their families, and visiting foreign dignitaries. And as noted before, assassination attempts are almost all now through firearms.  A secret service operative may be called on at a moment’s notice to act as a human shield to take a bullet for their principal.  Such a mentality is hard for me to fathom.  

It was created in 1865 to stamp out rampant counterfeiting and stabilize America’s young financial system. By the end of the Civil War, nearly one-third of all currency in circulation was counterfeit, putting the country’s economic stability in jeopardy. To address this concern, the Secret Service was established in 1865 as a bureau in the Treasury Department to suppress widespread counterfeiting. 

Given the bloodletting on the part of assassins throughout history, countermeasures were instituted.  However, as noted, part of the issue was who was watching the watchdogs.  Another sign of American exceptionalism is those tasked with protecting our American presidents have never been implicated as complicit in any plot as they clearly were in the death of Indira Gandhi. 

And this brings us to the use of assassination as a war tactic. John Bolton stated, “People say you favor assassination; what do you think war is? Except that, it’s assassination on a much larger scale, a much more horrific scale.”

Benjamin Disraeli once said that assassinations do not change the course of history.  Having lived in the 1800s, he could have seen the impact of the murder of Franz Ferdinand, but as a prominent member of Parliament, he would certainly have known of Lincoln’s death and, as a favorite of Queen Victoria, would have been aware of the impact of her near-fatal murder in 1840. It’s hard to think he also did not know his Roman history. He was wrong, of course.  Perhaps Disraeli intended to remove the role from politics on a permanent basis or to wish cast to prevent attempts on his own life.  

Lately, American foreign policy has taken on the concept of assassination. We have targeted the leaders of the Iranian military, though, at least to our knowledge, not the Ayatollahs, the religious leaders of the Iranian theocracy.  In order to destroy the Al Qaeda terrorist group, the US intentionally did not focus on those carrying out the acts but on the top 50 leaders, systematically targeting and killing all of them, including the supreme leader, Osama Bin Laden, in what could only be termed an assassination.  

And it worked.  There is almost always a dichotomy between the leaders and those carrying out terrorist acts.  Israel’s secret defense force, the Mossad, did not deliberately target Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat for his entire 50-year career, though he ordered terrorist acts.  

So, is Bolton correct?  Does the taking out of the leader instead of engaging in mass conflict limit or even proscribe war?  We went with a different plan regarding Al Qaeda, which has been neutered.  Bruce Berkowitz, writing for the Hoover Institution shortly after 9/11, and called Is Assassination an option, tackled this issue:

For example, is killing during wartime assassination? Does assassination refer to killing people of high rank, or can anyone be the target of assassination? Does it matter if a member of the armed forces, a civilian government official, or a hired hand does the killing? Depending on the definition, killing a military leader during a bombing raid might be “assassination,” but killing a low-level civilian official with a sniper might not.

Berkowitz concludes, “The only time we should consider assassination is when we need to eliminate a clear, immediate, lethal threat from abroad. In other words, assassination is a military option. We need to understand it as such because the United States will face more situations in which it must decide whether it is willing, in effect, to go to war to kill a particular individual and how it will target specific individuals during wartime.”

Another issue is that often, the assassinated are people of peace.  Josef Stalin and Mao Tse Dung, who between them mass murdered some 70 million people, well over 10 times that who died in Hitler’s holocaust, died in their beds largely of old age.  King, Mohandas Gandhi, and John Lennon, all advocates of peace and nonviolence, died by violent means.  

And in the case of the Israeli conflict.  Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian leader who made peace with Israel, was killed not by his once enemies, the Israelis, but rather by an extremist Egyptian who disapproved of his peace overtures.  Likewise, Yitzhak Rabin, who drove a peace plan with Arafat, was killed by an extremist Zionist, not a Palestinian.  And Arafat died in his bed after rejecting plausible peace plans.  

So, we will continue to wrestle with the concept of political assassinations.  But those, however they may linked to history going back millennia, are not the threats many of our leaders face.  The lone madman is still probably the thing that keeps Secret Service agents awake at night.