Joel McCleary and Mark Medish: A History of American Assassination Programs
[Joel McCleary and Mark Medish served as advisers respectively to Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.]
State-sponsored assassinations are back in season. Targeted snuff jobs of state enemies are on the rise from Dubai to Dagestan, from Yemen to Waziristan. Even the United States has returned to the practice: American military drones and special operations have been pushing the limits of President Ford’s 1976 executive ban against assassinations....
The last era of unrestrained use of assassination by the United States was during the Kennedy administration. So flagrant were the tactics that J.F.K.’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, privately charged that the Kennedy brothers were running a “damned Murder Incorporated.”
J.F.K.’s “executive action” policy was an open season of plots against troublesome foreign leaders such as Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Ngo Dinh Diem in Viet Nam, René Schneider in Chile, Patrice Lumumba in Congo and Fidel Castro in Cuba. Committees in both the U.S. Senate and House investigated this policy in 1975-1976 in an attempt to exercise oversight of C.I.A. covert operations.
The inquires of the Church Committee in the Senate led President Ford to issue the 1976 executive order banning “political assassination by U.S.G. employees.” Presidents Carter and Reagan issued similar orders, removing the “political” limitation and extending the prohibition to anybody acting on Washington’s behalf. These orders did nothing to change the traditional laws of war and self-defense, but they sent clear signals about a change of U.S. policy....
Castro was all too aware of the many U.S.-sponsored attempts on his life (the Church Committee identified eight.) Two weeks before J.F.K. died in Dallas, the Cuban leader warned those he knew were listening that if one more attempt were made on his life there would be dire consequences....
One need not believe in conspiracy theories about J.F.K. to be seriously concerned about the wisdom of J.F.K.’s assassination policy. The laws of war and self-defense may permit political assassination in certain cases, but prudence dictates thinking carefully before pulling that fateful trigger.
Read entire article at I.H.T.
State-sponsored assassinations are back in season. Targeted snuff jobs of state enemies are on the rise from Dubai to Dagestan, from Yemen to Waziristan. Even the United States has returned to the practice: American military drones and special operations have been pushing the limits of President Ford’s 1976 executive ban against assassinations....
The last era of unrestrained use of assassination by the United States was during the Kennedy administration. So flagrant were the tactics that J.F.K.’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, privately charged that the Kennedy brothers were running a “damned Murder Incorporated.”
J.F.K.’s “executive action” policy was an open season of plots against troublesome foreign leaders such as Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Ngo Dinh Diem in Viet Nam, René Schneider in Chile, Patrice Lumumba in Congo and Fidel Castro in Cuba. Committees in both the U.S. Senate and House investigated this policy in 1975-1976 in an attempt to exercise oversight of C.I.A. covert operations.
The inquires of the Church Committee in the Senate led President Ford to issue the 1976 executive order banning “political assassination by U.S.G. employees.” Presidents Carter and Reagan issued similar orders, removing the “political” limitation and extending the prohibition to anybody acting on Washington’s behalf. These orders did nothing to change the traditional laws of war and self-defense, but they sent clear signals about a change of U.S. policy....
Castro was all too aware of the many U.S.-sponsored attempts on his life (the Church Committee identified eight.) Two weeks before J.F.K. died in Dallas, the Cuban leader warned those he knew were listening that if one more attempt were made on his life there would be dire consequences....
One need not believe in conspiracy theories about J.F.K. to be seriously concerned about the wisdom of J.F.K.’s assassination policy. The laws of war and self-defense may permit political assassination in certain cases, but prudence dictates thinking carefully before pulling that fateful trigger.