On May 30, 1961, a hail of bullets ended the life of Generalissimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, known to his countrymen as ""The Goat"" for his many revolting excesses, after thirty-one years of brutal rule over the Dominican Republic. This book is a riveting, minute-by-minute account of the plot to kill Trujillo, who was then the Western Hemisphere's most ruthless dictator, and the ferocious wave of revenge that ensued before his regime collapsed. The book also reveals the vacillating role of the United States - and the CIA - in first propping up the dictator, and then supplying weapons to slay him.

Among the probes was an extensive 1990 inquiry organized by a New Scotland Yard team invited to Kenya by the government, as well as an open public commission of inquiry appointed by President Daniel arap Moi. The commission ran for seventeen months in 1990-91 before the president shut it down. International and Kenyan unrest over Ouko's brutal death brought increasing attention to corruption and violence associated with the Moi government, leading in late 1991 to multiparty politics and in December 2002 to the elections that ended the Moi era. This powerfully argued book raises important issues about the production of knowledge and the politics of memory that will interest a large interdisciplinary audience. An inquiry into how facts are created and knowledge produced, The Risks of Knowledge pursues a ghastly murder into the normally unseen worlds of international business wheeling and dealing, into the rural "squireocracy" of western Kenya, and into the bureaucratic routines of Kenya's government. In this, their third coauthored study of Kenya, the authors show how these unfinished investigations are about much more than the solution to the murder of a distinguished Kenyan statesman and world citizen.

What is the definition of assassination? Robert Baer's boss at the CIA once told him, 'It's a bullet with a man's name on it.' Sometimes assassination is the senseless act of a psychotic, a bloodletting without social value. Other times, it can be the sanest and most humane way to change the course of conflict: one bullet, one death, case closed. Assassination has been dramatised by literature and politicised by infamous murders throughout history, and for Robert Baer, one of the most accomplished agents ever to work for the CIA, it's a source of endless fascination. Over several decades, Baer served as an operative, from Iraq to India and beyond. In THE PERFECT KILL, he takes us on a wildly entertaining narrative adventure through a history of political murder, interweaving his first-hand experience and his decades-long cat-and-mouse hunt for the greatest assassin of the modern age. A true maverick with an undeniably captivating personal story, Baer pulls back the curtain to give a glimpse of the underbelly of world politics, and the quiet murderers who operate on the fringe of our society.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Edgar Award Nominee
One of the Best Books of the Year: "O, The Oprah Magazine," "Time," "The Washington Post," "The Christian Science Monitor," " St. Louis Post-Dispatch," "San Francisco Chronicle
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With a New Afterword

On April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray shot Martin Luther King at the Lorraine Motel. The nation was shocked, enraged, and saddened. As chaos erupted across the country and mourners gathered at King's funeral, investigators launched a sixty-five day search for King's assassin that would lead them across two continents. With a blistering, cross-cutting narrative that draws on a wealth of dramatic unpublished documents, Hampton Sides, bestselling author of "Ghost Soldiers, " delivers a non-fiction thriller in the tradition of William Manchester's "The Death of a President" and Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood. "With "Hellhound On His Trail, "Sides shines a light on the largest manhunt in American history and brings it to life for all to see.

Political assassinations and terrorism have both outraged and fascinated the public throughout American history, particularly in the modern era. Providing biographical summaries of more than 100 assassins and terrorists, this book aims at a more complete understanding of the motivations behind violent extremism. The lives of the subjects are analyzed with a focus on psychological and ideological factors, along with details of investigations and criminal trials. Conspiracy theories are evaluated for credibility. Social media features prominently in explaining political violence by members of extremist groups in the 21st century, including radical Islamic terrorists, anti-abortion activists and white supremacists.

The anchor of "The O'Reilly Factor" recounts one of the most dramatic stories in American history - how one gunshot changed the country forever. In the spring of 1865, the bloody saga of America's Civil War finally comes to an end after a series of increasingly harrowing battles. President Abraham Lincoln's generous terms for Robert E. Lee's surrender are devised to fulfil Lincoln's dream of healing a divided nation, with the former Confederates allowed to reintegrate into American society. But one man and his band of murderous accomplices, perhaps reaching into the highest ranks of the U.S. government, are not appeased. In the midst of the patriotic celebrations in Washington D.C., John Wilkes Booth - charismatic ladies' man and impenitent racist - murders Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre. A furious manhunt ensues and Booth immediately becomes the country's most wanted fugitive. Lafayette C. Baker, a smart but shifty New York detective and former Union spy, unravels the string of clues leading to Booth, while federal forces track his accomplices. The thrilling chase ends in a fiery shootout and a series of court-ordered executions - including that of the first woman ever executed by the U.S. government, Mary Surratt. Featuring some of history's most remarkable figures, vivid detail, and page-turning action, "Killing Lincoln" is history that reads like a thriller.

A thorough work of contemporary history and a distillation of the complex web of the Iranian Kurdish political world, this biography of Kurdish leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou depicts the character and passionate action of one of the twentieth century's most exceptional and democratic leaders of a national movement. Carol Prunhuber, who knew Ghassemlou from the early 1980s, shows us the many facets of a humanist leader of magnitude and worldwide scope. From revolution that toppled the Shah to the dark and treacherous alleys of the Cold War, Dreaming Kurdistan revives the Kurdish leader's fated path to assassination in Vienna. We know how, why, and who murdered Ghassemlou-and we stand witness to Austria's raison d'etat, the business interests that put a lid on the investigation, and the response of silent indifference from the international community. Professor of economics in Prague, bon vivant in Paris, clandestine freedom fighter in the Kurdish mountains, stalked by the Shah's secret police, Ghassemlou is ultimately assassinated by the hit men of Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Republic. Prunhuber takes us, through a murky world of equivocal liaisons, complicities, treachery, and undisguised threats, from Tehran to Vienna. While the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to perturb and defy the West, Dreaming Kurdistan is essential for an understanding of Iran and the Kurds' longing for freedom and democracy.

Lebanon, together with the province of Hatay in Turkey (containing Antakya) and the Golan Heights were all part of French mandate Syria, but are now all outside the boundaries of the modern Syrian state. The policies and reactions of Syria both to the loss of these territories and to the states that have either absorbed, annexed or emerged from them (Lebanon, Turkey and Israel) are the focus of Emma Jorum's book. Jorum uses the differences in policy and discourse when it comes to each of these three cases to highlight the nature of territorial dispute in the region, and the processes of state-building and nationalism more generally. Through the examination of Syria's policies concerning these lost territories, Jorum plots and analyses Syrian-Turkish, Syrian-Lebanese and Syrian-Israeli relations, explaining why some losses have been pushed to one side and others remain at the forefront in Syria's international relations and diplomacy efforts.

In 1922, voters in the newly created Republic of Poland democratically elected their first president, Gabriel Narutowicz. Because his supporters included a Jewish political party, an opposing faction of antisemites demanded his resignation. Within hours, bloody riots erupted in Warsaw, and within a week the president was assassinated. In the wake of these events, the radical right asserted that only ""ethnic Poles"" should rule the country, while the left silently capitulated to this demand. As Paul Brykczynski tells this gripping story, he explores the complex role of antisemitism, nationalism, and violence in Polish politics between the two World Wars. Though focusing on Poland, the book sheds light on the rise of the antisemitic right in Europe and beyond, and on the impact of violence on political culture and discourse.

On March 18, 1975, Herbert Chitepo, an African nationalist in exile and chairman of the war council that struggled to liberate Zimbabwe from white-ruled Rhodesia, was killed by a car bomb. Since then, there have been four confessions and at least as many accusations about who was responsible. In The Assassination of Herbert Chitepo, Luise White does not set out to resolve questions about who was accountable for this horrible murder. Instead, in a style that is as much murder mystery as it is history writing, she uncovers what is at stake in the various confessions and why Chitepo s assassination continues to incite conflict and controversy in Zimbabwe s national politics. White casts doubt on official accounts of the murder and addresses how and for whom history is written and how myths and ideas about civic culture were founded in war-torn Zimbabwe. Although the truth about the assassination of Herbert Chitepo may never be known, readers will discover how one man s murder continues to unsettle Zimbabwe."

With a single shot from a pistol small enough to conceal in his hand, John Wilkes Booth catapulted into history on the night of April 14, 1865, just as he hoped. But his murder of President Abraham Lincoln - one of the most familiar events in American history - brought Booth infamy, not the acclaim he sought. Booth was remarkably different from other presidential assassins. Admired as an actor well before the tragedy at Ford's Theatre, the handsome and likeable twenty six year old was billed as "the youngest star in the world." Lincoln was among the thousands who applauded his performances. Wealth, fame, and popularity came to Booth, but they meant little compared to the turbulent actor's passion to help the South win its independence. When the war went badly for the Confederacy, he abandoned acting and plotted to abduct Lincoln and take him south as a prisoner. Booth stalked Lincoln relentlessly during the last winter of the war, only to fail time and again to capture him. As the Confederacy collapsed in April, 1865, Booth decided that the only way he could revive the South and punish the North for the war would be to murder Lincoln - whatever the cost to himself or others. How could someone so gifted and admired-someone with so much to lose-commit a crime that stunned and infuriated the nation? The first biography of Booth ever written, Fortune's Fool answers that question. Its cradle-to-grave portrait of one of America's most remarkable personalities sets it apart from other books on the Lincoln assassination. The result of a quarter-century of research into government archives, historical libraries, and family records, it brings to life the exceptionally talented and troubling individual who committed the most consequential murder in American history.

In November 1963 President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. His death remains a defining moment for millions of people but few understand the unstoppable forces that were building in the city long before this dramatic event played out before the world. Dallas 1963 is a riveting account of the convergence of a group of unyielding and highly focused protagonists in a city sometimes seemingly filled with hate for JFK. Wicked stabs of fate and circumstance steered these fascinating characters together: the richest man in the world, a combative military general, a Mafia don, a strident Congressman, thundering preachers and even the elegant owner of one of America's most famous stores. This book expertly narrates how the spiralling events surrounding these characters on the ground in Dallas ultimately brewed a toxic environment before the President's assassination. Using a wealth of new information, as well as the first ever examination of key primary documents, Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis, both experts in their field, provide a comprehensive and detailed portrait of the place, the time and the people of these extraordinary events in American history. They also provide cautionary and controversial lessons rendering this time increasingly relevant for the modern age.

When an assassin gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in late June 1914, no one could have imagined the shocking bloodshed that would soon follow. Indeed, as award-winning historian Sean McMeekin reveals in "July 1914," World War I might indeed have been avoided entirely had it not been for the actions of a small group of statesmen in the month after the assassination. Whether they plotted for war or rode the whirlwind nearly blind, these men sought to capitalize on the fallout from Ferdinand's murder, unwittingly leading Europe toward the greatest cataclysm it had ever seen. A deeply-researched account of the genesis of World War I, "July 1914" tells the gripping story of the month that changed the course of the 20th century.

On March 24, 1980, the assassination of El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero rocked that nation and the world. Despite the efforts of many in El Salvador and beyond, those responsible for Romero's murder remained unpunished for their heinous crime. Assassination of a Saint is the thrilling story of an international team of lawyers, private investigators, and human-rights experts that fought to bring justice for the slain hero. Matt Eisenbrandt, a lawyer who was part of the investigative team, recounts in this gripping narrative how he and his colleagues interviewed eyewitnesses and former members of death squads while searching for evidence on those who financed them. As investigators worked toward the only court verdict ever reached for the murder of the martyred archbishop, they uncovered information with profound implications for El Salvador and the United States.

If you were beginning to believe that "lone nut" Lee Harvey Oswald did kill President Kennedy all by himself, this could be the book to convince you, that there was indeed a conspiracy and a cover-up. The contributors worked independently at first, and were drawn together by a shared outrage at statements on the assassination made in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" in 1992. They explain their evidence and reasoning in easily understandable language, and present insights on the physical evidence, the autopsy findings, the bullet trajectories, the interpretation of numerous eye-witness accounts, and the misleading logic of the official lone nut theorists. Among their conclusions are: crucial autopsy x-rays of JFK's skull have been fabricated; the official "magic bullet" theory is anatomically and ballistically impossible; autopsy pictures of the brain alleged to be JFK's are of someone else's brain; Kennedy was hit at least four times, and a minimum of six bullets were fired in Dealey Plaza that day; and new evidence indicates the Warren Commission inquiry was a political charade based on selected and manufactured evidence.

On May 2, 2011, at 1:03 a.m. in Pakistan, a satellite uplink was sent from the town of Abbottabad crackling into the situation room of the White House in Washington, D.C.: 'Geronimo, Echo, KIA'. These words, spoken by a Navy SEAL, put paid to Osama bin Laden's three-decade-long career of terror. This is the story of Bin Laden's relentless hunters and how they took down the terrorist mastermind, told by Chuck Pfarrer, a former assault element commander of SEAL Team Six. After talking to members of the SEAL team involved in the raid, Pfarrer shares never-before-revealed details of the historic raid and the men who planned and conducted it in an exclusive boots-on-the-ground account of what happened during each minute of the mission - both inside the building and outside. Pfarrer takes readers inside the operation as the SEALs flew over the wall of Bin Laden's shabby compound and then penetrated deeper and deeper into the terrorist's lair, telling us just what it looked, sounded, and smelled like in that sweltering Pakistani suburb. He takes us to the exact spot where the al-Qaeda leader was cowering when the bullet entered his head. SEAL Target Geronimo is an explosive story of unparalleled valour, clockwork military precision, and deadly accuracy carried out by one of the most elite fighting forces in the world - the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team Six.

This is a gripping account of the famous operation in Entebbe, Uganda on 4 July 1976. While the nation of Israel, and Jews throughout the world, struggle with the painful realities of the current Intifada, Yoni's Last Battle by Iddo Netanyahu returns to an earlier chapter of the Arab-Israeli struggle -- to a time when the battles were more clear-cut, and genuine heroes led the charge. The date was 4 July 1976. While millions of Americans celebrated the 200th anniversary of their independence, thirty of Israel's elite commandos flew 2,000 miles to Entebbe, Uganda, under the cover of darkness, in a desperate attempt to rescue 105 Jewish and Israeli passengers hijacked by terrorists on an Air France flight. Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, a courageous and celebrated soldier, led the daring operation. Virtually the entire group of hostages was liberated and returned safely to Israel, but Yoni was killed in the operation that was described by the New York Times as having "no precedent in military history". In extraordinary detail, Dr Iddo Netanyahu -- Yoni's youngest brother, and also brother to former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu -- reconstructs events to portray a minute-to-minute chronicle of one of the earliest and most spectacular victories in the modern war against terrorism. Based on interviews with almost every member of the operation, Yoni's Last Battle is a fascinating and first-hand account of the intense 48-hour period of planning and preparation of the mission, and its near-perfect execution in extremely difficult circumstances. This is also an intriguing portrayal of Yoni himself, who at the age of 30, was the brilliant and heroic commander of a courageous and daring mission.

Yugoslavia and Political Assassinations is the first book in English to analyse how and why the Yugoslav State Security Service carried out multiple targeted assassinations, over the country's forty-six years of existence, under the pretext of protecting the Yugoslav communist party-state. Offering a detailed history of the programme, from the inception of the State Security Service to the recent trials of individuals involved, it draws on Christian Axboe Nielsen's unique wealth of experience and research as an academic and as an expert witness in numerous criminal trials. The result is a ground-breaking contribution to the history of targeted assassinations, communist history, state security services and related criminal trials.

"There is a lack of quiet in Sylvia that craves for action.... She knows that she is special and that she possesses unusual and varied abilities." -- From the Mossad's psychological evaluation of Sylvia Rafael

When Moti Kfir, head of the Academy for Special Operations of the Mossad, first interviewed Sylvia Rafael in a coffee shop, he knew she would make a great combatant for Israel's intelligence agency. She was outgoing, resourceful, brilliant, and had a talent for bonding with others. When Kfir warned her that the mysterious job they'd met to discuss could be dangerous, she simply sat back comfortably in her chair and smiled.

Sylvia Rafael is the page-turning account of a young, dedicated agent as told by the man who trained her. Drawing on extensive research and interviews, authors Ram Oren and Moti Kfir tell the story of Rafael's rise to prominence within the Mossad and her intelligence work trying to locate Ali Hassan Salameh -- the leader of Palestine's Black September organization and the mastermind behind the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. Her team's misidentification of their mark would eventually lead to her arrest and imprisonment for murder and espionage.

Now available in English for the first time, Sylvia Rafael offers new insight into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its history, and its human cost. It is a gripping, authentic spy story about a fearless defender of the Jewish people.

Throughout American history, Presidents and Presidential candidates have faced countless assassination threats and attempts on their lives. These threats have extended not only to sitting Presidents and candidates but also to Presidents-elect and former Presidents. Assassinations, Threats, and the American Presidency: From Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama walks through Presidential history, looking at the countless assassination threats and attempts that have occurred throughout history. Historian Ronald L. Feinman discusses the Presidencies of sixteen Presidents, as well as three important candidates and five living Presidents today, and how they were directly threatened with assassination, ranging from the first known threat to Andrew Jackson in 1833, to threats to Barack Obama in late 2014. All nineteen of these Presidents and candidates were threatened with assassination-six being killed, three wounded, and ten unhurt. Additionally, he reveals information about some failed attempts, which, had they been successful, could have resulted in fifteen different men who would have become President of the United States. Which ones would have been able to fill the responsibilities? Which ones would have been disastrous in the Oval Office? Assassination attempts, both successful and failures have been part of our political culture for over 180 years, and the problem of Presidential security, safety and protection remains a serious problem today. With the President being faced with countless death threats, the Secret Service and FBI are forced to employ all kinds of technological methods to protect our Chief Executive and his family, as well as other top officials in the line of succession. Feinman brings to light how these agencies have grown, both technologically and physically, to counter these attacks. He, also, sheds light on how these threats to our Presidency have devastated, changed, and grown our United States into what it is today.

When John Wilkes Booth fired his derringer point-blank into President Abraham Lincoln's head, he set in motion a series of dramatic consequences that would upend the lives of ordinary Washingtonians and Americans alike. In a split second, the story of a nation was changed. During the hours that followed, America's future would hinge on what happened in a cramped back bedroom at Petersen's Boardinghouse, directly across the street from Ford's Theatre. There, a twenty-three-year-old surgeon -- fresh out of medical school -- struggled to keep the president alive while Mary Todd Lincoln moaned at her husband's bedside. In Lincoln's Final Hours, author Kathryn Canavan takes a magnifying glass to the last moments of the president's life and to the impact his assassination had on a country still reeling from a bloody civil war. With vivid, thoroughly researched prose and a reporter's eye for detail, this fast-paced account not only furnishes a glimpse into John Wilkes Booth's personal and political motivations but also illuminates the stories of ordinary people whose lives were changed forever by the assassination. While countless works on the Lincoln assassination exist, Lincoln's Final Hours moves beyond the well-known traditional accounts, offering readers a front-row seat to the drama and horror of Lincoln's death by putting them in the shoes of the audience in Ford's Theatre that dreadful evening. Through her careful narration of the twists of fate that placed the president in harm's way, of the plotting conversations Booth had with his accomplices, and of the immediate aftermath of the assassination, Canavan illustrates how the experiences of a single night changed the course of history.

Most Americans are aware that their sixteenth president was mortally wounded by a man named Booth at a Washington theater in April 1865. These are facts that nobody can dispute. However, a closer look at this history-changing catastrophe raises questions that have still not been fully answered. The passing of the 150th anniversary of the United States' first presidential assassination is an ideal time for students and scholars to consider these questions. The Lincoln Assassination Riddle explores the persistent mysteries of the assassination with contributions from leading experts-Burrus M. Carnahan, Joan L. Chaconas, Michael S. Green, Michael Kauffman, Betsy J. Ownsbey, Edward Steers Jr., Tom Turner, and others-who approach the crime from a variety of perspectives. Each focuses on one controversial or compelling topic-among them the extent of the conspiracy to kill President Lincoln, whether Lincoln can be regarded as a martyr to voting rights, a new analysis of John Wilkes Booth and his relationship with the Confederate government and how it affected the plot, the forensics of Lincoln's death, and whether modern medicine could have saved the president. Also included are important discussions of Booth's escape route in southern Maryland and its effects on the assassination. Controversial figures like Louis Weichmann and Mary and John Surratt are profiled and the evidence against them examined. There is little doubt that the assassination of Abraham Lincoln changed the course of American history in ways we are still dealing with today. The course of racial justice in the United States was forever altered by Booth's bullet. This volume will challenge and delight readers who are interested in getting to know everything they canabout this epic and tragic event and in untangling the riddle of the Lincoln assassination.

New foreword by J.F.K. director Oliver Stone Reclaiming Parkland details the failed attempt of Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks and producer Gary Goetzman to make Vincent Bugliosi's mammoth book about the Kennedy assassination, Reclaiming History, into a miniseries. It exposes the questionable origins of Reclaiming History in a dubious mock trial for cable television, in which Bugliosi played the role of an attorney prosecuting Lee Harvey Oswald for murder, and how this formed the basis for the epic tome. Author James DiEugenio details the myriad problems with Bugliosi's book, and explores the cooperation of the mainstream press in concealing many facts during the publicity campaign for the book and how this lack of scrutiny led Hanks and Goetzman cofounders of the production company Playtone to purchase the film rights. DiEugenio then shows how the film adapted from that book, entitled Parkland, does not resemble Bugliosi's book and examines why. This book reveals the connections between Washington and Hollywood, as well as the CIA influence in the film colony today. It includes an extended look at the little-known aspects of the lives and careers of Bugliosi, Hanks, and Goetzman. Reclaiming Parkland sheds light on the Kennedy assassination, New Hollywood, and the political influence on media in America.

Looking beyond the events of the second intifada and 9/11, this book reveals how targeted killing is intimately embedded in both Israeli and US statecraft, and in the problematic relationship between sovereign authority and lawful violence underpinning the modern state system. It details the legal and political issues raised in targeted killing as it has emerged in practice, including questions of domestic constitutional authority, the use of force in international law, the law of belligerent occupation, the law of targeting and human rights law. The distinctive nature of Israeli and US targeted killing is analysed in terms of the compulsion of legality characteristic of the liberal constitutional state, a compulsion that demands the ability to distinguish between legal 'targeted killing' and extra-legal 'political assassination'. The effect is a highly legalized framework for the extraterritorial killing of designated terrorists that may significantly affect the international law of force.