Few events have been the subject of more conspiracy theories than the assassinations of the two Kennedy brothers. Indeed, a great many people consider that there were other individuals than Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan involved in both murders. Was a shot fired from Dealey Plaza's grassy knoll? Why did Jack Ruby shoot Oswald? Was it the CIA, the Soviets, Cuban nationalists or the Mafia that arranged John Kennedy's assassination? Was Robert Kennedy shot from in front and behind, and who had the most to gain from his death? These are just a few of the questions that have been put forward by a myriad of conspiracy theorists and it is those people and their ideas that Mel Ayton has tackled head-on. Over many years, Mel Ayton has examined all the more substantial conspiracy theories and, through careful analysis of documents and eyewitness statements, he has demolished each one. In each case, Mel Ayton presented the results of his detailed investigations in periodicals as he worked through the various theories. These have now been brought together to provide a comprehensive analysis of all the main theories as to who, how and why the two Kennedy brothers met their deaths in such unusual circumstances. Though wild ideas will continue to be proposed and efforts will still be made to demonstrate that Oswald could not have fired off three shots with great accuracy in the few seconds available to him as the presidential cavalcade passed beneath the window where he crouched, or that there were sinister reasons why three CIA men were allegedly present on the night of Robert Kennedy's assassination, the harsh reality is that the Kennedy brothers were each killed by lone gunmen. This is an absorbing read, brought up to date with the addition of new material as it has been uncovered. Maybe, just maybe, this book will persuade people that the official accounts of both murders, although flawed, are not cover-ups but simply statements of fact.

On November 22nd, 1963 the assassination of President John F. Kennedy set into motion a series of events that irrevocably changed American politics and culture. The media frenzy spawned by the controversy surrounding the death of JFK has since given way to a powerful public memory that continues to shape the way we understand politics, the 1960s, and the nation.

In The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: Political Trauma and American Memory, Alice George traces the events of Kennedy s assassination and Lyndon B. Johnson s subsequent ascension to the presidency. Covering both the political shifts of the time and the cultural fallout of the national tragedy, this book introduces students of the twenty-first century to both an iconic event and to the context in which that event was heralded as iconic. Drawing on newspaper articles, political speeches, letters, and diaries, George critically re-examines the event of JFK s death and its persistent political and cultural legacy.

On November 22nd, 1963 the assassination of President John F. Kennedy set into motion a series of events that irrevocably changed American politics and culture. The media frenzy spawned by the controversy surrounding the death of JFK has since given way to a powerful public memory that continues to shape the way we understand politics, the 1960s, and the nation.

In The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: Political Trauma and American Memory, Alice George traces the events of Kennedy s assassination and Lyndon B. Johnson s subsequent ascension to the presidency. Covering both the political shifts of the time and the cultural fallout of the national tragedy, this book introduces students of the twenty-first century to both an iconic event and to the context in which that event was heralded as iconic. Drawing on newspaper articles, political speeches, letters, and diaries, George critically re-examines the event of JFK s death and its persistent political and cultural legacy.

Since 1789, when George Washington became the first president of the United States, forty-three men have held the nation's highest office. Four were killed by assassins, and serious attempts were made on the lives of eight others.Add to that list Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, and it is reasonable to conclude that political prominence in the U.S. entails grave risks. In Defining Danger, James W. Clarke explores the cultural and psychological linkages that define assassinations and a new era of domestic terrorism in America.

Clarke notes an upsurge in political violence beginning with the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. Since then, there have been ten assassination attempts on nationally prominent political leaders. That is two more than the eight recorded in the previous 174 years of the nation's presidential history. New elements of domestic terror in American life were introduced in the 1990s by Timothy McVeigh, the "Oklahoma City Bomber," Ted Kaczynski, the "Unabomber," and Eric Rudolph, the abortion clinic bomber. These men were politically motivated; their crimes were unprecedented. These events and the perpetrators behind them are among the subjects of this book.

Defining Danger conveys two central themes. The first is that individual acts of violence directed toward America's democratically elected leaders represent a defining element of American politics. The second addresses how danger is defined, through an analysis of the motives and characteristics of twenty-one perpetrators responsible for these acts of political violence where shots were fired, or bombs detonated, and in most instances, victims died. The book is written in an accessible and engaging style that will appeal to the informed general reader, as well as to professionals in a variety of fields--especially in the wake of recent events and the specter of future violence that, sadly, haunts us all.

On December 27, 2007, a suicide bomber killed Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan. Brilliant and charismatic, the head of a political family as important to Pakistani history as the Gandhis in India or the Kennedys in the United States, Bhutto had recently returned from exile to challenge military dictator Pervez Musharraf in a democratic election. In the aftermath of the assassination, some blamed Musharraf; others blamed terrorists linked to the Pakistani security service, the ISI; still others pointed the finger at Bhutto s own spouse and entourage; and some speculated that it was a lone wolf attack. Though the individuals behind the conspiracy have never been found, in Getting Away with Murder Heraldo Munoz goes further than anyone else to unravel the mystery of Bhutto s death. Moreover, he explains the unexpected role America played in the tragic events, the byzantine relationship between Pakistan and the United States, and how Bhutto s assassination impacted world politics. In a country ruled more often by military dictators than by elected governments, Bhutto offered a secular, democratic hope. Arguably one of Pakistan s most iconic political figures, she became one of the world s few female heads of government. Her assassination tore the country apart, destabilizing the entire region. Leading the United Nations inquiry, Munoz delved into murky world of Pakistani politics and the infamous Bhutto family, awash in charisma and power, controversy and violence. His year-long investigation frames a story of betrayals, corruption, foreign influence, and unsolved political assassinations.

Munoz provides new insight into Bhutto s unprecedented rise and an unflinching, minute-by-minute narrative of the assassination itself. With impeccable research, Munoz also situates Bhutto in the decades-long history of U.S.-Pakistan relations and the emergence of global terrorism, pinpointing her death as the moment when those relations changed forever.

The result is a gripping narrative of Pakistan s turbulent political realities and the death of its leading politician."

This volume develops the theory of cultural trauma, a key research program in the Strong Program of Cultural Sociology. In regard to the shattering potential effects of political assassinations, Eyerman examines such effects on political and social life in three different national contexts: Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, and Harvey Milk in the U.S.; Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands; and Olof Palme and Anna Lindh in Sweden.

Assassination as a political act has a long history, predating the murder of Julius Caesar and continuing into our own time. The murder of the mighty has long fascinated artists and rebels but only rarely has it been studied in a scholarly manner. In Assassin, J. Bowyer Bell combines existing historical evidence with years of personal interviews with terrorists in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. The result is an incisive study of that enigmatic figure, the revolutionary killer.

As Bell makes clear, the motives of the actors, and effectiveness of assassination, vary widely across time and place. Assassination in many parts of the world has not only been a normal political act, rational, explicable, but also often effective, in some cases taking fewer lives in the transfer of power than an election. Likewise, there have been all kinds of assassins--personal, psychopathic, professional, ranging from lonely failures trying to make their mark to authorized agents of the state.

Using the assassination of Henry IV of France as a historical backdrop, Bell writes about contemporary political murder from the perspective of one who has studied the subject of political violence for decades. Bell has met with or known well the perpetrators, conspirators, and intended victims of assassination who have escaped. His interviewees include a radical Irish revolutionary leader, an American Arabist diplomat, a spokesman for the PLO, and the president of a Mozambique liberation movement. The itinerary of his investigative journeys covers most of the flashpoints of contemporary political violence.

The people and places studied here at firsthand are engaged in a deadly game. The attrition rate is often high, the power fleeting, and the consequences often unforeseen. If past is prologue, assassination is to be with us for years to come. The volume will be essential reading for those engaged in the prevention of political violence and terror as well as historians and political scientists.

The murder of the Prime Minister, Butrus Ghali in 1910 was the first incident of its kind in Egypt for over a century, and it reflected the mood of Egypt's youth at the time. It also set a precedent for the more extreme elements of the population who saw assassination as a way to dispatch 'traitors' and as a potent expression of political dissent. Badrawi studies the circumstances that led to the violence and attempts to understand the mood and motives that provoked it.

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 the evening of 14 April 1865 when President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in Ford's Theatre, an entire audience was witness to the tragedy. From diaries, letters, depositions, affidavits, and periodicals, here is a collection of accounts from a variety of theatergoers--who by chance saw one of the truly pivotal events in U.S. history. Providing minute first-hand details recorded over a span of ninety years, " We Saw Lincoln Shot" explores an event that will forever be the subject of debate and controversy. "I was present at the theater and saw it all," said Samuel Koontz. "In fact I was only about fifteen feet from the President when he was shot, although he was in a private box in the theater." In a letter to his parent Jason S. Knox wrote: "Dear Father, It is with sad feeling that I take up my pen and address you. Last Friday night at ten o'clock, I witnessed the saddest tragedy ever enacted in this country. Notwithstanding my promise to you not to visit the theater, I could not resist the temptation to see General Grant and the President, and when the curtain at Ford's rose on the play of 'Our American Cousin, ' my roommate and I were seated on the second row of orchestra seats, just beneath the President's box." Although there have been many studies of the Lincoln assassination, few have been devoted to the actual event. Overwhelmingly, historians have been attracted to the conspiracy that preceded Lincoln's death or to the aftermath. Too few have relied sufficiently upon eyewitness accounts, and some, without considering how the human mind fails to preserve minute details in long-term memory, have trusted recollections transcribed many years after Lincoln died. With a sharp focus upon the circumstances reported by one hundred actual witnesses, "We Saw Lincoln Shot" provides vivid documentation of a momentous evening and exposes errors that have been perpetuated as the assassination has been rendered into written histories.

Kanno Suga and Kaneko Fumika were both found guilty on different occasions in 1911 and 1926 of conspiring to assassinate the Japanese emperor. Kanno was executed and Kaneko hanged herself whilst in prison, but both women maintained their defiance of the State even in the face of death. Through examination of their own life stories and writings, Helene Bowen Raddeker brings to life the women's own interpretations of their lives and their attitudes to death, with the associations of political martyrdom, heroism and notions of immortality. She finds that their self-presentations became weapons in an ideological war of words about social and political realities and their deaths were a means of self-empowerment within their historical context.

The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by Orthodox Jew Yigal Amir, twenty years ago this November, remains the most consequential event in the country's recent history. Killing a King relates parallel stories over the two years leading up to the assassination, as Rabin plotted political deals he hoped would lead to peace and Amir plotted murder. Dan Ephron covered both the rally where Rabin was assassinated and the subsequent murder trial. This deeply researched narrative is based on a trove of documents from the era and interviews with the key players, including members of Amir's family. Only through the prism of the murder is it possible to understand Israel today, from the paralysis in peace-making to the relationship between Netanyahu and Obama.

The ongoing assassinations of anti-apartheid activists led to rumours that some kind of third force must be responsible. The South African government flatly denied any involvement. All investigations of the matter were met with stony silence.

The first crack in the wall came with the publication by the Vrye Weekblad newspaper of the extraordinary story of Dirk Coetzee, former Security Branch Captain. His tale of murder, kidnapping, bombing and poisoning provided corroboration of the shocking confessions made by Almond Nofemela on death row. Slowly the dark secret started unravelling under the probing of determined journalists.

In The Heart Of The Whore introduces the reader to the secret underworld of the death squads. It explains when and why they were created, who ran them, what methods they employed, who the victims and perpetrators were. Jacques Pauw was more closely involved with the subject than any other person outside the police and armed forces. In this groundbreaking work he looks at the devastating effect of the secret war on the opponents of apartheid as well as the corrosive effects on the people who committed these crimes.

Jacques Pauw is the author of the bestselling book The President’s Keepers. He is an award-winning journalist, television documentary producer and author. This is NOT an updated edition, just a re-release of the original 1992 book.

Superbly edited and annotated, this collection of the writings of John Wilkes Booth constitutes a major new primary source that contributes to scholarship on Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, and nineteenth-century theater history. The nearly seventy documents--more than half published here for the first time--include love letters written during the summer of 1864, when Booth was conspiring against Lincoln, explicit statements of Booth's political convictions, and the diary he kept during his futile twelve-day flight after the assassination.

On 20 June 1900, Baron von Ketteler, the German Minister, was assassinated in a Peking street. By 4pm the first shots were fired into the legation quarter and the siege of foreigners by Boxers and imperial troops had begun. Among the besieged were 148 women from America, Europe, Russia and Japan and Maud, the Baron's American widow. What were their experiences? How did they cope with their 79 children for two months, without enough to eat, often under fire? This book tells their story - of courage, grief, humour, friendship, ill-health, and hard work - mostly through their own accounts. It identifies the women for the first time as individuals: missionary teachers and doctors, "globe trotters", and the wives of diplomats, officials, railway engineers, merchants, bankers and the owner of the Peking Hotel.

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.

'In explaining the rise to power of Kim Yo Jong, Lee displays his deep knowledge and understanding of North Korea's extreme, ruthless and self-obsessed dynastic autocracy, the creators and rulers of a de-facto nuclear weapon state. Not a reassuring story'- Sir John Scarlett, former Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) The Sister is a fascinating, authoritative account of the spectacular rise of Kim Yo Jong, de-facto deputy to her brother, Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, and the most powerful woman in North Korea. In 2022, in a particularly fiery speech, Kim Yo Jong threatened to nuke South Korea, reminding the world of the dangers posed by her state. But how did the youngest daughter of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il, his ‘sweet princess’, become the ruthless chief propagandist, internal administrator and foreign policymaker for her brother’s totalitarian regime? The Sister, written by Sung-Yoon Lee, a scholar and specialist on North Korea, uncovers the truth about Kim Yo Jong, her close bond with Kim Jong Un and the lessons in manipulation they learned from their father. He also examines the iron grip the Kim dynasty has on their country, the grotesque deaths of family members deemed disloyal, and the signs that Kim Yo Jong has been positioned as her brother’s successor should he die while his own children are young. Readable and insightful, this book is an invaluable portrait of a woman who might yet hold the survival of her despotic dynasty in her hands. 'An incisive portrayal of North Korea's "princess", Kim Yo Jong, but also a chilling portrait of a family dynasty that has oppressed and exploited North Korea for generation after generation' - Max Boot, Washington Post columnist, author and senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

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.

Images of the assassination of John F. Kennedy are burned deeply into the memories of millions who watched the events of November 1963 unfold live on television. Never before had America seen an event of this magnitude as it happened. But what is it we remember? How did the near chaos of the shooting and its aftermath get transformed into a seamless story of epic proportions? In this book, Barbie Zelizer explores the way we learned about and came to make sense of the killing of the president. Covering the Body (the title refers to the charge given journalists to follow a president) is a powerful reassessment of the media's role in shaping our collective memory of the assassination-at the same time as it used the assassination coverage to legitimize its own role as official interpreter of American reality. Of the more than fifty reporters covering Kennedy in Dallas, no one actually saw the assassination. And faced with a monumentally important story that was continuously breaking, most journalists had no time to verify leads or substantiate reports. Rather, they took discrete moments of their stories and turned them into one coherent narrative, blurring what was and was not "professional" about their coverage. Through incisive analyses of the many accounts and investigations in the years since the shooting, Zelizer reveals how journalists used the assassination not just to relay the news but to address the issues they saw as central to the profession and to promote themselves as cultural authorities. Indeed, argues Zelizer, these motivations are still alive and are at the core of the controversy surrounding Oliver Stone's movie, JFK. At its heart, Covering the Body raises serious questions about the role of the media in defining our reality, and shaping our myths and memories. In tracing how journalists attempted to answer questions that still trouble most Americans, Zelizer offers a fascinating analysis of the role of the media as cultural authorities.

For years the rumours persisted: the apartheid state was responsible for the continual disappearance and assassination of anti-apartheid activists. Then, in November 1989, former security policeman Captain Dirk Coetzee made the announcement: ‘I was the commander of the South African police death squad. I was in the heart of the whore.’

Despite official denials and cover-ups, the rumours of apartheid’s death squads have now been proved to be all too real. Hundreds of anti-apartheid activists were killed and thousands tortured by a group of bizarre assassins, the foot soldiers of apartheid’s secret war. Jacques Pauw has been more closely involved with apartheid’s killers than any other journalist. For more than seven years, he has hunted them down and become a witness to their secret and forbidden world.

Into The Heart of Darkness is Jacques Pauw's follow-up to In The Heart Of The Whore will take you on a journey into the minds and lives of the men who went out to kill and kill again. What caused these souls to become so dark and guided them to so much evil?

Jacques Pauw is the author of the bestselling book The President’s Keepers. He is an award-winning journalist, television documentary producer and author. This is NOT an updated edition, just a re-release of the original 1997 book.

A New York Times Best Seller! Richard Belzer and David Wayne are back to set the record straight after Dead Wrong; this time they're going to uncover the truth about the many witness deaths tied to the JFK assassination. For decades, government pundits have dismissed these "coincidental" deaths, even regarding them as "myths" as "urban legends." Like most people, Richard and David were initially unsure about what to make of these 'coincidences'. After all, events don't "consult the odds" prior to happening; they simply happen. Then someone comes along later and figures out what the odds of it happening were. Some of the deaths seemed purely coincidental; heart attacks, hunting accidents. Others clearly seemed noteworthy; witnesses who did seem to know something and did seem to die mysteriously. Hit List is a fair examination of the evidence of each case, leading to (necessarily) different conclusions. The findings were absolutely staggering; as some cases were clearly linked to a "clean-up operation" after the murder of President Kennedy, while others were the result of 'other forces'. The impeccable research and writing of Richard Belzer and David Wayne show that if the government is trying to hide anything, they're the duo who will uncover it. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

With the recent declassification of secret documents new light has been shed on old mysteries. For example, we now know that what might be termed the "JFK assassination conspiracy industry" was deliberately fueled and manipulated by the KGB so as to distract the CIA and undermine confidence in successive U.S. administrations. Also, new evidence continues to emerge of Vladimir Putin's commitment to the extra-judicial elimination of "extremists" overseas, as legitimized by the Duma in July 2006. Controversially, the legislation included a definition of "extremists" as "those slandering the individual occupying the post of president of the Russian Federation". The Encyclopedia of Political Assassinations contains a chronology, an introduction, and appendixes. The encyclopedia section has more than 700 cross-referenced entries on assassinations, intelligence agencies, politics and foreign relations.

This is a full account of the last attempt to restore James II to the throne, which he lost to William and Mary in 1688. The Assassination Plot of 1696 aroused enormous contemporary interest, and here re-emerges as a fascinating episode of considerable importance for our appreciation of the political world of the 1690s. But the book is as much concerned with personalities as events, and offers a compelling narrative of day-to-day life in late seventeenth-century England as well as insights into the personalities and political attitudes of William III and the exiled James II. Early in 1696, Louis XIV lent ships and men to James to help him regain his kingdom. To coincide with the French invasion, a rising was secretly organized by the Jacobites in England. However, as neither side would take the initiative the murder of William III, planned by a group of Jacobites in London, was seen as a way out of the deadlock. The plot was betrayed on the eve of the murder attempt and most of the conspirators were apprehended.