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The assassination of political, religious and military leaders, often dictators, is frequently seen as the short cut to solving a particular problem. The author takes issue with this argument. Examining a series of linked assassinations together with their causes and effects, he seeks to demonstrate that in many cases the killings have produced unforeseen and unintended consequences that all too often result in the opposite result to that desired. His case studies, arranged intriguingly in pairs, cover such diverse characters as Julius Caesar and Thomas à Becket, Gandhi and Jesus Christ, Tsar Alexander II and Abraham Lincoln, Michael Collins and Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.This is an absorbing, controversial and informative study

The assassinations of political & social leaders in the 1960s still affect the public. The emotional impact of these assassinations is large; 90% of Americans today still remember the assassination of President Kennedy. While in principle, Americans & other nations believe that political assassinations are never justified, this opinion has changed somewhat over the years to support the assassination of terrorists or threatening foreign leaders. The public clearly believes that a conspiracy is behind the attempts, & they blame government agencies. This belief of covering up conspiracies shows a distinct shift to cynicism in the public's mind. 56 References. R. Larsen

In this revealing look at the history of assassinations, Kenneth Baker examines over a hundred political and religious murders or attempted murders, ranging from Julius Caesar to President Kennedy to Osama bin Laden. 0Assassins hope to change the world, but rarely succeed: Baker concludes that the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914 was the only one that changed the history of the world. Other assassinations, whether of monarchs, politicians, dissidents, clerics, journalists or others at best give only a glancing blow at history. The author concludes that, in Macbeth's words, an assassination `is a poisoned chalice.' 0Kenneth Baker also reveals that since 1945 there have been fewer individual assassins working alone; now assassinations are more likely to be carried out by political and religious terrorists, or by the security services of certain states to eliminate dissidents. Not only Russia and Israel, but the USA, the UK and others have resorted to targeted killings when they consider their security is under threat. On Assassinations shows how we have moved from the era of individual assassinations, through to terror groups' murders and now onto state-sponsored targeted killings

I argue that widely accepted just war theory precepts morally allow and require the assassination of politically powerful individuals under some circumstances instead of waging a just war or implementing any other policy such as non-targeted economic sanctions that would very likely severely harm more innocents. While all just war theory precepts permit just assassinations under certain circumstances, proportionality, necessity, and last resort make just assassinations required whenever they would cause severe harm to the fewest innocents. There are several implications of my argument. First, there are fewer circumstances when wars and other policies that foreseeably but unintentionally harm innocents are just than is commonly thought. Second, the realm of morally permissible violent and non-violent action for powerful individuals is more limited than many presume and politicians are more often morally liable to actions that would mitigate or end objectively unjust serious threats for which they are culpable, although this does not always include lethal force.

FOCUSING ON ONE FORM OF VIOLENCE AGAINST POLITICAL ELITES, THIS STUDY EXAMINES BOTH SUCCESSFUL AND UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS ON THE LIVES OF PRESIDENTS. THE AUTHOR REVIEWS SPECIFIC CASES AND ATTEMPTS TO MEASURE, OR ESTIMATE, THE MAJOR POLITICAL IMPACT ON BOTH PUBLIC OPINION AND POLICY DEVELOPMENT WHICH A SUCCESSFUL ASSASSINATION MAY HAVE.