The recent attempt on Donald Trump’s life no doubt reawakened memories of previous shots taken at presidents and others – and not in the distant past either.
I remember five off hand; Ronald Reagan in 1981 – a successful shot that nearly killed him; Gerald Ford in 1975 – twice!! (although one attack was somewhat farcical); and George Wallace in 1972, who was left in a wheelchair after the attack. Like Trump, all three survived, although Reagan was a closer call than was immediately revealed. Less fortunate were Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., both killed in 1968.
Four U.S. presidents died from assassins’ bullets in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when political violence was quite common. Probably, a number of assassins went to try their luck but never got close enough. I should mention two people who probably were the victims of the most attempts, albeit unsuccessful: King Hussein of Jordan, and President Charles de Gaulle of France.
Assassinations and assassination attempts inevitably give birth to conspiracy theories. To be fair, the most famous and consequential assassination of the 20th century WAS committed by a conspiracy! On June 28, 1914, the Serbian nationalist group The Black Hand assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Many textbooks still say that this event led to World War I, but that is not quite accurate. More precisely, the assassination provided some Austrian leaders with a pretext to settle scores with smaller neighbor Serbia. What happened next cannot be compressed into a single column (trust me on this), but that will eventually lead to a general war – the consequences of which are still not completely resolved.
However, most assassinations, then and now, are the work of “lone wolf” assassins. There are three reasons for this, two of which you don’t me to tell you. First, the lone wolf is the hardest for the police to stop. The police can infiltrate a group – but not an individual. If one person decides to take a shot at someone, often nothing is known about that person’s decision until the shot is fired. Incidentally, the Black Hand that assassinated Franz Ferdinand was infiltrated; the Serbian government found out about the plot, and secretly warned some Austrian officials that the Archduke should NOT travel to Sarajevo. He did anyway, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Second, many assassins are individuals of doubtful mental stability, not agents of some organized group. Organized assassinations are often the work of governments, and government security services typically do not want mentally unstable people doing their work. Incidentally, governments rarely plot to assassinate other heads of state; that invites retaliation. The typical victims are critics and enemies of their own regime.
The third reason – especially relevant a century ago – was the appeal of “anarchism.” What is that, you say? Oversimplified version: Anarchism is a belief that man is basically good but is corrupted by powerful, oppressive institutions. Therefore, those institutions must be overthrown. Don’t confuse anarchism with communism: the two beliefs were arch-enemies back in the day and fought vigorously for support among the working classes. What does this have to do with assassinations?
Anarchists sometimes advocated random violence against the powers that be so as to disrupt oppressive institutions. Communists were completely opposed to this, believing that society could only be saved through organized revolution. Even so, the two still get confused because they both tend to be on the left of the political spectrum, although anarchism can be found on the right as well.
As you can tell, I am not a huge fan of assassination conspiracy theories. However, conspiracies can and do exist. The key to a successful conspiracy is that it has to be small. You can’t have a successful conspiracy involving thousands of people.
So, what about the Trump event, which has generated conspiracy theories on both sides? I doubt it. For one thing, real shots were fired; under the circumstances, a staged injury seems pretty hard to accept. I don’t think the Trump crowd was creating theater, as some have speculated. The chances of a significant injury were far too great. Nor do I think the Democrats would plot such a thing. Joe Biden was still their candidate at the time, and Trump was Biden’s best and possibly only chance for holding on to the White House.
But could you have an assassination attempt by arranging for someone to take a shot and then quickly kill that person so that they could not spill the beans? Believe it or not, that once happened! Joseph Colombo was head of a Mafia family in New York. While this is always a dangerous occupation, Colombo made enemies among his fellow Mafia chieftains by organizing the Italian-American Civil Rights League, which generated far more publicity than his fellow criminals appreciated. (There were several with their own reasons for killing Colombo, to be fair.) In 1971, a certain Jerome Johnson shot Colombo three times at a League rally and was promptly gunned down by Colombo’s bodyguards. Colombo lingered for years, but he never recovered. The police concluded that Johnson was a lone wolf killer, but as he had been in a Mafia club a few days earlier, I have my doubts …
Hubert van Tuyll is professor emeritus of history at Augusta University. Reach him at hvantuyl@augusta.edu.
