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181 lines
9.8 KiB
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<conspiracyFile>Volume : SIRS 1991 History, Article 56
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Subject: Keyword(s) : KENNEDY and ASSASSINATION
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Title : Do Assassinations Alter the Course of History?
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Author : Simon Freeman and Ronald Payne
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Source : European
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Publication Date : May 24-26, 1991
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Page Number(s) : 9
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EUROPEAN
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(London, England)
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May 24-26, 1991, p. 9
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"Reprinted courtesy of THE EUROPEAN."
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DO ASSASSINATIONS ALTER THE COURSE OF HISTORY?
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by Simon Freeman and Ronald Payne
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India faces collapse with the violent death of Rajiv Gandhi--or
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does it? Simon Freeman and Ronald Payne analyse the importance of
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individuals in the march of events
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They have paid their tributes, expressed their horror and
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pledged, as they always do when one of their number is murdered,
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that democracy will triumph in the face of terrorism. Now, in
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their weekend retreats, with their foreign affairs advisers and
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their top secret intelligence reports, world leaders will have to
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judge the true impact on India of the assassination of Rajiv
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Gandhi.
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They will conclude, perhaps a little unhappily for them but
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fortunately for the rest of us, that Gandhi's death is unlikely
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to be more than a footnote, if a substantial one, in the history
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of his country. India will not disintegrate. There will be no
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civil war. The Indian military will not stage a coup. Pakistan
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will not launch the oft-predicted strike which would set the
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region ablaze.
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Some Indians, perhaps many, may die over the next month in
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the kind of primitive ethnic and religious feuding which has
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always threatened to destroy the country. But, unless history is
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truly mischievous, India will muddle through and get on with the
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business of trying to survive.
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It is rarely the personal stature of a statesman which
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decides how pivotal his contribution to history will be. History
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usually depends less on the drama of an assassination or the
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status of the victim than on more profound political, economic or
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demographic forces. In retrospect, it often appears that assassin
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and victim were inexorably drawn together to become the catalyst
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for inevitable change.
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The most spectacular assassination in modern European
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history--the shooting of Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife
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at Sarajevo in 1914 by a Serbian student, Gavrilo Princip--was
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undoubtedly the immediate cause of the First World War. But few
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serious historians today subscribe to the theory that, had
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Princip not pressed the trigger that late June day in the cause
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of Serbian nationalism, the 19th-century order would have
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survived.
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Dr Christopher Andrew, of Cambridge University, believes
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that the assassination merely set the timetable for war. He said:
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"Even if the Archduke had not been killed then there might have
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been a great war anyway." Other experts now talk not of Princip
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but of an explosive cocktail of nationalism straining within
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decrepit empires and of fatally dangerous alliances built by
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leaders from an earlier world.
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It is possible to see Sarajevo as the climax to a period in
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which political murders became almost routine. The reference
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books on late 19th-century Europe are peppered with the names of
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hapless, long-forgotten politicians who were shot, bombed or
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stabbed because, so it was thought by the many bands of
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extremists, that was the only way to force change.
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While there are no precise ways to assess the real
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importance of an assassination, historians like Andrew reckon
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that there are some general guidelines. In the stable, advanced
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democracies of today the murder of a top politician is unlikely
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to cause more than outrage and pain.
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When the Irish Republican Army blew up the Grand Hotel in
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Brighton in 1984 in an attempt to kill Prime Minister Margaret
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Thatcher and most of her Cabinet, they hoped that there would be
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such disgust at the murders that the British public would force
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their leaders to pull out of Northern Ireland. But, even if
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Thatcher had died this would not have happened. Her death would
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probably have strengthened her successor's resolve not to bow to
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terrorism.
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The IRA should have known this from the reaction to the
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killing five years earlier of Lord Louis Mountbatten,
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distinguished soldier, public servant and pillar of the British
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Establishment. The murder changed nothing in the province and
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only demonstrated, as if it was necessary, that determined
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terrorists often find ways to murder their chosen targets.
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Similarly, The Red Brigade anarchists who cold-bloodedly killed
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Aldo Moro, the Italian prime minister, in May, 1978, achieved
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nothing except to ensure that the Italian authorities would hunt
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them with even more determination. Nor did the killers of Swedish
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Prime Minister Olof Palme accomplish anything. The murder--still
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unsolved--drew the usual, but clearly genuine, shocked response
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from world leaders. But even at the time they were hardpressed to
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pretend that Palme's murder would fundamentally matter to Sweden.
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The Third World, on the other hand, is more volatile.
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Sometimes, as in India, countries are an uneasy blend of
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feudalism and capitalism, dynastic authoritarianism and
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democracy. The demise of dictators often leaves a bloody vacuum.
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Yet even here, the assassination of a tyrant does not necessarily
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signal major upheaval. General Zia ul-Haque, who had ruled
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Pakistan since 1977, was blown up in his plane in the summer of
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1988. But, though he had long seemed crucial to the continuing
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stability of the country, his death seemed to be the fated climax
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to the era of military rule.
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The murder of Egypt's President Sadat in October 1981 seemed
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then to herald some new dark age of internal repression and
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aggression towards Israel. But his successor, Hosni Mubarak,
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merely edged closer to the Arab world without returning to the
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pre-Sadat hostility towards Israel.
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The killers of kings and dictators in other Arab countries
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have also discovered that they have murdered in vain. Iraq has
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endured a succession of brutal military dictators who have died
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as violently as they lived. The fact that Iraq has never
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experienced democracy is the result of economic and historical
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realities, not assassins' bullets. Saudi Arabia has also seen its
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share of high level killings yet, today, the House of Saud
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remains immovably in power.
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But in the United States, where the idea of righteous
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violence is deeply embedded in the national consciousness, the
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grand assassination has been part of the political process for
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more than a century. Beginning with the murder of President
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Abraham Lincoln in 1865, the list of victims is a long and
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distinguished one. It includes most recently, President John F.
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Kennedy in 1963; his brother, Robert, heir apparent, shot in
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1968; Martin Luther King, civil rights campaigner and Nobel Peace
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Prize winner, gunned down the same year. Ronald Reagan could
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easily have followed in 1981 when he was shot and badly wounded.
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John Kennedy's death now appears important for different
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reasons from those one might have expected at the time. It did
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not derail any of his vaunted civil rights or welfare programmes;
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rather his death guaranteed that his successor, Lyndon Johnson,
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would be able to push the Kennedy blueprint for a New America
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through Congress. Nor did it end the creeping US involvement in
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Vietnam.
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But Kennedy has been immortalised by his assassin and the
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mythology of his unfulfilled promise will endure long after his
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real accomplishments are forgotten.
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In a curious, perverse, sense he and his fellow-martyrs
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might live on as far more potent symbols of change than if they
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had survived into gentle retirement with their fudges revealed
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and their frailties exposed.
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Why good leaders die and bad ones survive
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Few names of hated tyrants appear on the roll-call of world
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leaders who fall to the assassin's bomb, knife or bullet, writes
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Ronald Payne. One of the curiosities of the trade in political
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murder is that those the world generally recognises as bad guys
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often live to a ripe old age or die quietly in their beds. Few
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who mourn the passing of Rajiv Gandhi would have shed so many
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tears had President Saddam Hussein been blown to pieces in Iraq.
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There was a time only a few years ago when Americans and
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Europeans would have celebrated the violent demise of President
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Muammar Gaddafi. Both the Libyan leader and Hussein live on, as
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do Idi Amin of Uganda, or Fidel Castro, whom the American Central
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Intelligence Agency plotted so imaginatively and ineffectually to
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remove.
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When academics play the game of what might have been, the
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consequences of assassinating such monstres sacres as Stalin and
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Hitler arise.
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When the Russian dictator died suddenly of natural causes,
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the whole Soviet Union was paralysed because no leader dared
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claim the right to succeed him. That in itself suggests what
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might have happened had Stalin been shot unexpectedly at a more
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critical moment.
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The timing of a political murder is crucial. Had Adolf
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Hitler been assassinated before he achieved full power or before
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his invasion of the Soviet Union, the history of Germany, and
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indeed of Europe, would have been very different.
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Fascinating though such intellectual exercises are, it seems
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that as a rule it is the decent, the innocent and the relatively
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harmless who perish as assassins' victims.
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The reason may not be far to seek. Tyrants watch their backs
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pretty carefully. The secret police are ever active. It is easier
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to kill statesmen in democracies where the rule of law prevails
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and the sad truth is that leaders in those countries which
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exercise authority through voting rather than shooting are more
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at risk than Middle East tyrants.
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A further reason for the survival of the hated monster
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figure might be that Western intelligence services have been
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forbidden to go in for execution. The CIA and the British secret
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intelligence service are now out of the killing business. Even
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the KGB's assassination specialists seem to have been stood down.
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In any case the Kremlin was hardly keen on the murder of
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ruling statesmen even in the bad old days. Soviet leaders
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understood the realities of power well enough to know that such
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acts were unlikely to further their cause.</conspiracyFile>
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