The Nation: Assassination as Foreign Policy

If the allegations that the CIA fostered assassinations as an instrument of policy were to be proved true, the U.S. would be put in rather rare historical company. Although killing rulers and leaders is a human practice that sometimes seems commonplace, it has usually been the work of individual fanatics, rival factions within a nation, insurrectionists, nationalists seeking to throw off external government, or citizens moved to eliminate a tyrant. Seldom have governments set out to kill the principals of other governments as a matter of cool policy, even with the bloodiest provocation.

According to Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, a senior British...

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