ASSASSINATION

ASSASSINATION

Murder committed by a perpetrator without the personal provocation of the victim, who is usually a government official.

First used in medieval times to describe the murders of prominent Christians by the Hashshashin, a secret Islamic sect, the word assassination is used in the twenty-first century to describe murders committed for political reasons, especially against government officials. Assassination may be used as a political weapon by a state as well as by an individual; it may be directed at the establishment or used by it.

The term assassination is generally applied only to political murders—in the United States,
most commonly to attempts on the life of the president. However, the classification of any one incident as an assassination may be in part a matter of perception. The “assassination” of the outlaw Jesse James, in 1882, provides an example of the difficulties. Thomas T. Crittenden, governor of Missouri, assumed that being seen as responsible for the death of the notorious outlaw would be good for his political career. For this reason, Crittenden granted each of the killers a pardon in addition to a $10,000 reward.
But the American public spoke vehemently against James’s killers, dubbing them assassins
and his death an assassination. Crittenden was vilified by the American people, and his political
career was destroyed.
It is not always easy to guess the motivations
of those who attempt assassinations or to understand
the historical and legal implications of
their actions. The anti-constitutional nature of
assassination has made it a focal point for conspiracies
and conspiracy theories from the
beginning. The first attempt at the assassination
of a U.S. president was Richard Lawrence’s
attack on ANDREW JACKSON in 1835. Although a
jury acquitted Lawrence on the ground of insanity,
Jackson was convinced that the attack was
part of a WHIG PARTY conspiracy.
The 1865 assassination of President ABRAHAM
LINCOLN by John Wilkes Booth prompted
its own set of theories. In a controversial decision,
a military tribunal convicted nine people
of conspiring in Lincoln’s assassination. In the
case of one of those hanged for the crime,Mary
E. Surratt, all that could be proved was that she
owned the rooming house in which the conspirators
plotted. Nonetheless, high emotions at the
end of the Civil War resulted in her execution.
After sentiments cooled and talk of conspiracies
calmed, the two surviving conspirators imprisoned
for Lincoln’s death gained pardons from
President ANDREW JOHNSON.
Even greater controversy was caused when
the public was deprived of the opportunity to
see Lee Harvey Oswald tried for the assassination,
in 1963, of President JOHN F. KENNEDY.
Oswald’s death at the hands of JACK RUBY
sparked theories of conspiracy that ranged from
Communist plots to Mafia hits to cover-ups by
U.S. officials. President LYNDON B. JOHNSON
appointed a group of national figures, led by
Supreme Court Chief Justice EARL WARREN, to
investigate the assassination and issue a report.
The WARREN COMMISSION concluded that
Oswald had acted alone.
Despite this, conspiracy theories remained
widespread in books and in films like Oliver
Stone’s JFK: The Untold Story (released in 1991).
In an attempt to calm public suspicions surrounding
the Kennedy assassination, the President
John F. Kennedy Assassination Records
Collection Act of 1992 (44 U.S.C.A. § 2107) was
passed by Congress. The act released much of the Kennedy assassination material in government
files. As of 2003, its effectiveness at stilling
concern over a possible conspiracy remained to
be seen.
It has become clear that the public demands
a thorough investigation of any attempt on a
president’s life. Because it is a crime to advocate
the assassination of any U.S. president, even
threats are carefully investigated. In U.S. history,
four presidents have lost their lives to assassins:
Abraham Lincoln, JAMES GARFIELD, WILLIAM
MCKINLEY, and John F. Kennedy.
Political Assassination by U.S
Government Employees
In 1974 the Congress established a committee
to investigate possible U.S. involvement in
plots to assassinate foreign leaders deemed hostile
to U.S. interests. Specifically, the committee
investigated the alleged involvement of the CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) in plots to
kill Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Fidel Castro
of Cuba, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican
Republic, General Rene Schneider of Chile, and
Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam. The absence
of a written record and the failing memories of
principal witnesses prevented the committee
from conclusively demonstrating that presidents
Eisenhower, Kennedy, or Nixon personally
authorized the assassination of any foreign
leader. However, the evidence did show that
between 1960 and 1970, the CIA was involved in
several assassination plots.
The committee reported its findings in 1975
to a dismayed Congress. Public outcry was loud
and immediate. At the urging of both the House
of Representatives and the Senate, President
GERALD R. FORD signed an EXECUTIVE ORDER
banning all federal employees from committing
assassination as a tool of U.S foreign policy or
for any other reason. Exec.Order No. 11905. The
order was extended by President RONALD REAGAN
15 years later to also preclude hired assassins.
Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.,
Congress and the White House have been revisiting
the propriety of political assassinations
committed by members of the U.S. government.
In December 2002, according to a Globe and
Mail news story, President GEORGE W. BUSH gave
the CIA written authority to kill about two
dozen terrorist leaders if capturing them proved
to be impractical and civilian casualties could
not be minimized. The CIA relied on that
authority in using a pilotless Predator aircraft to
fire a Hellfire antitank missile at a car in Yemen
carrying an al-Qaeda operative. The al-Qaeda
operative and five other people died in the
attack.
FURTHER READINGS
Allen Chair Symposium 2002. 2003. “Political Assassination
as an Instrument of National Policy: An Inquiry into
Operations, Expediency, Morality, and Law.” Univ. of
Richmond Law Review (March).
Donoghue, Mary Agnes. 1975. Assassination: Murder in Politics.
Chatsworth, Calif.: Major Books.
Harder, Tyler J. 2002. “Time to Repeal the Assassination Ban
of Executive Order 12,333: A Small Step in Clarifying
Current Law.”Military Law Review 172 (June).
McKinley, James. 1977. Assassination in America. New York:
Harper & Row.
Taylor, Stuart, Jr. 1998. “Assassination as Self-defense.” New
York Law Journal (November 30).
CROSS-REFERENCES
Lincoln, Abraham, “Lincoln Assassination Conspiracy” (In
Focus).