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Assassination
H. H. A. Cooper
Paladin Press
Boulder, Colorado
On Assassination
by H.H.A. Cooper
Copyright 1984 by H.H.A. Cooper
ISBN 0-87364-290-2
Printed in the United States of America
Published by Paladin Press, a division of
Paladin Enterprises, Inc., P.O. Box 1307,
Boulder, Colorado 80306, USA
(303) 443-7250
Direct inquiries and/or orders to the above address.
All rights reserved. Except for use in a review,
no portion of this book may be reproduced in any form
without the express written permission of the publisher.
Neither the author nor the publisher assumes
any responsibility for the use or misuse of
information contained in this book.
CONTENTS
OM 2b oa ous! sith ins gas 2 ieee signe nee 1
St ateeical PEESPCClIVES 1.52% nt ess cee een ens 17
meeevernment by Assassination .........00..0s005 39
MMS ACGING oa), ac als ore dine @ da ong telen Soa hw 59
edo ahd Means 66.5ao 0e v.ase0 er4ese6ed6ea ns 89
Sesatural Death by Unnatural Means ............ 123
femeacig the Assassin's Challenge ..........+.000. 155
PEO TTI STOM tren ys'o erect eikaie ae le'e cas.e gede ore novs teases 183
BEIEETEDIDIOSLAPNY oss 6- en ew 8 eon neencm es 205
For the men and women of the United States Secret Service.
“The political assassin is the world’s outlaw.”
—Frederick Forsyth!
INTRODUCTION
Assassination is a much abused word. Like the word terrorism,
it is used indiscriminately both to describe and to denigrate. The
word is heavily charged with fear; the assassin’s shadow is a harbinger
of fear in high places. Fear is the dominant theme of all that can
be usefully said or written about assassination. It is fear that gives
the assassin his peculiar power and his place in history; all the might
of the modern state may yet be insufficient to stay a single assassin
in his deadly work. He is secretive, mysterious, dangerous, and
despised; he has the power to alter the course ofh istory.
The assassin, amateur or professional, male or female, may be
regarded with wonder, his skill and daring grudgingly acknowledged.
He may even be appreciated to the extent that he is useful to those
who engage his talents or applaud the results in a particular case.
He is never beloved, even when his target is the foulest of tyrants,
for fear of association with his crime crowds out such emotions.
Those who delegate to themselves the task of executioner are perhaps
the most feared and despised of all. Few wish to claim an assassin
as a friend.
No medals await the professional assassin. He is paid his blood
money and hastened into obscurity—or eliminated. This is not because
of unease that he might talk, for usually he will have little or nothing
to say that might implicate his employer.? Rather it is that his task,
like that of the public hangman, is regarded as necessary but despicable.
2 On Assassination
Only a handful of assassins are ever remembered by name. For the
assassin carries the Mark of Cain; he must bear, for his pains, the
contempt of the world, as well as that of the political system to
which he poses such a threat. If he is caught, he can expect little
sympathy. He would be unwise to count on mercy.
Assassination is a very special kind of intentional homicide. It is
Murder Plus. It is this extra ingredient that separates it from other
types of killing, however brutal or outrageous. Assassination, then,
is the willful killing of a human being in order to alter the normal
course of events in a particular public sphere in which the victim
has been influential.
Perception of the victim as an important power or symbol in the
public scheme of things is important. The personal qualities of the
victim are relevant in this context. The attack is made for public
rather than private reasons; the victim is seen as an intrinsic part
of the structure that the assassin seeks to alter. At the very heart
of the concept of assassination lies the notion of an attack upon power.
It is not the individual the assassin seeks to destroy, but the power
the individual embodies. Sometimes, where the center of power itself
cannot be attacked, a victim seen as significantly attached to it is
selected.
This is what distinguishes assassination from common murder.3
However misguided, distorted, or erroneous the belief might be, the
assassin or those behind his deed see some primary public significance
or worth in the removal of the individual whose death is effected.
The intent may be to damage a policy or course of state (Sadat;
deGaulle); to end a hated regime (Trujillo); to prevent an accession
to power (Gemayel); to avenge past wrongs (Wasfi Tell); to warn
or intimidate others (Letelier, Prats, Leighton); or to defend or
strengthen those in power (Trotsky). The aberrant or mentally
disturbed usually seek self-aggrandizement by sharing, for a brief
moment of history, through the horror of their acts, some sort of
association with the power and glory of those they have slain or
attempted to strike down (Hinckley).
