“There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at with no result.” Donald Trump may have accidentally channelled this famed remark from Winston Churchill when he ascribed dodging a sniper’s bullet to a blend of dumb luck (turning his head) and divine providence.
In the nature of things, victims of assassination attempts are usually denied any famous last words. Caesar’s “et tu, Brute?” was a rare and rueful recrimination. Avoiding death though, does seem to exhilarate survivors.
Ignoring a bullet in his chest, one which had previously passed through his glasses case and folded speech text, Teddy Roosevelt declared: “it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose”. For his part, Charles de Gaulle derided his would-be murderers – and many there were – for their inability to shoot straight. Perhaps courage really is the guarantor of the other virtues. “I am alive because of God and the Virgin Mary,” declared Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, speaking to the Pope in 2022, the day after a gunman pulled a trigger several times close to the face of the then vice-president.
Any putative assassin might well ask himself or herself what their predecessors had actually achieved.
As a breed, assassins are not merely despicable but rather debased as well. Consider a Shakespearean actor (targeting Abraham Lincoln), a student aimlessly wandering around Sarajevo (Archduke Ferdinand), a youngster obsessed by a movie star (Ronald Reagan), an anarchist labourer (William McKinley), a man with a grievance about religious donations (Shinzo Abe), a loser who had failed even at defecting (John F. Kennedy), a law student (Yitzhak Rabin), an ex-saloonkeeper (Roosevelt) and the latest example, a kitchen worker who looked up earlier assassinations online (Trump).
In their own distinctly peculiar ways, all of them seemed to want to redress imagined grievances, maybe to rid the world of purported villains, to be noticed or to make a difference.
Oddly, those professionally trained to kill specific targets within the framework of military discipline (snipers, commandoes or Special Forces) bear more resemblance to the Nizari Ismailis from the 12th century who gave their name to Assassins. The original Assassins were highly skilled specialists in asymmetrical warfare, directed in their missions by a central control (theatrically styled the Old Man of the Mountains). Similar resemblances could be found in the IRA’s meticulously planned preparations for blowing up Margaret Thatcher at her party conference. A few other assassins have taken advantage of proximity to commit murder, particularly ancient Rome’s Praetorian Guard (to depose Emperors) and Indira Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards (in revenge for the attack on the Golden Temple).
Any putative assassin might well ask himself or herself (women killed Rajiv Gandhi and tried to murder Gerald Ford) what their predecessors had actually achieved. The Gandhis devised a family succession plan. Lyndon Johnson implemented the program which Kennedy could not push through Congress. Russian nihilists killed the liberator of the serfs, a Tsar replaced by a notoriously repressive autocrat. Shooting Lincoln ensured the South was treated more harshly than he had planned. Stabbing Caesar eventually turned Rome over to a man who actually did want to be a king. Killing Reinhold Heydrich, one of the architects of the Final Solution, did not modify Nazi policy and resulted in terrible reprisals.
The killing of Yitzhak Rabin was an exception, since that achieved the results which the assassin wanted. A charismatic leader was removed, negotiations with the Palestinians stalled, and the political agenda was re-aligned.
Leaders are always going to be hard to protect, especially if demonstrating a common touch means touching commoners. The key problem might be how to keep madness at bay in our politics, not just how to keep mad folk away from our leaders. As for Australia, once more, happy is the country which has no history. Arthur Calwell, as Leader of the Opposition, was peppered with shotgun pellets. John Howard, as Prime Minister, once wore a bulletproof vest. An English prince was shot at (with blanks from a starting pistol) on a Sydney beach. Nothing worse has happened to us.
For some elliptical, eclectic further reading on the subject, you may wish to consult:
Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll (Harper Collins, 2023)
Mrs Paine’s Garage by Tom Mallon (Penguin, 2002)
Lincoln by Gore Vidal (Hachette, 1984)
The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins (Penguin, 1975)
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth (Penguin, 1971)
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (1599)