Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
ENTRIES A-Z
A
* * *
Abdallah Abderemane, Ahmed (1919–1989)
President Ahmed Abdallah Abderemane, the longtime ruler (with near dictatorial powers) of the Comoro Islands, off the East African coast, survived coup attempts in 1983, 1985, and 1987. He was assassinated on November 26, 1989.
At the time of his death, Abdallah had ruled the island nation, one of the poorest in the world with an annual per capita income of $339 (1989), for all but three years since 1972. Abdallah was overthrown in 1975, a month after the Comoro Islands declared their independence from France. In 1978 Abdallah returned to power with the aid of 50 mercenaries headed by Bob Denard, a Frenchman. In November 1989 he won a referendum that allowed him to seek another six-year term when he was due to step down in 1990. The official results showed approval by 92.5 percent of the vote, but observers said the election was rife with ballot-box stuffing, voter harassment, and destroyed ballots.
The 1989 coup against Abdallah was said to have been led by Ahmed Mohammed, the former commander of the armed forces, and Mohammed was said to have been seized. According to government reports, Abdallah died in a firefight between the rebels and the members of the 300-man presidential guard, which was far better trained and better equipped than the regular army forces. The head of the Supreme Court, Mohammed Djohar, took over as head of an interim government.
The international consensus soon crystallized that the real force behind the assassination was the mercenary Denard, who since Abdallah's return to power in 1978 had become a very wealthy Comoran with a native wife and substantial real estate and business interests. Faced with growing international criticism, the governments of France and South Africa (which financed the presidential guard) put pressure on Denard to leave the Comoros. France reportedly alternated between offering money to Denard and threatening him with an invasion of Foreign Legionnaires stationed on the nearby island of Mayotte. Denard finally departed in December 1989 with 21 other mercenaries and landed in South Africa. The mercenaries and especially Denard were reported to be continuing into France shortly. (See SOILIH, ALI.)
Abdul-Aziz, Ottoman Sultan (1830–1876)
There is some question whether the Turkish sultan Abdul-Aziz was murdered or whether he committed suicide a few days after he was deposed in 1876; a case can be made for either possibility. Abdul-Aziz came to the throne in 1861 and for the next decade was busy molding Turkey on the western European model. However, as the sultan drained the national treasury for his personal excesses, he found it necessary to steer a more Islamic course. He started to rule by willful decree, over the opposition of his more astute ministers, such as Midhat Pasa and army leader Hussein Avni Pasha. The sultan's unpopular alliance in the 1870s with Russia and crop failure in 1873 contributed to his growing unpopularity, as did his lavish expenditures and the soaring public debt.
On May 30, 1876, the two ministers, Midhat and Hussein Avni, headed a coup that drove the sultan from power, and a few days later it was announced that Abdul-Aziz had committed suicide. In the ensuing political ferment, Hussein Avni Pasha was assassinated while attending a cabinet meeting. However, Midhat Pasa continued as grand vizier (chief minister) under Sultan Abdul-Hamid II. Later Midhat was accused of conspiracy against the current sultan and expelled from the country in 1877, only to be recalled in 1878 and restored to governmental position. Finally in 1881 Midhat was stripped of his duties and charged with the assassination of Abdul-Aziz. He was convicted and sentenced to death, but because of protests from Western European countries, he was instead banished to at-Ta'if, Arabia. There in 1883 he was assassinated, almost certainly at the behest of Abdul-Hamid II. (See MIDHAT PASA.)
Abdullah Ibn Hussein (1882–1951)
Longtime emir of Transjordan, Abdullah Ibn Hussein was throughout his life a close ally (some would say puppet) of Great Britain, and he maintained an army, the Arab Legion, that was trained and commanded by British Brigadier John Glubb Pasha. In 1946 Abdullah became the first king of the new state of Jordan. His longtime ambition was a united Arab kingdom encompassing Syria, Iraq, and Trans-Jordan under his rule.
In 1947 Abdullah was the only Arab ruler ready to accept the United Nations' partitioning of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, which he believed would further his own ambitions. During the 1948 war with Israel, Abdullah occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River and captured the Old City of Jerusalem. Two years later he incorporated the West Bank territory into Jordan, a move that estranged him from his former allies Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, which were seeking the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state on the West Bank. Abdullah also lost considerable popularity within Jordan itself because of his actions.
On July 20, 1951, Abdullah, accompanied by his grandson Hussein, the future king of Jordan, visited the tomb of his father in Old Jerusalem. Abdullah was shot to death there by Mustafa Ashu, a 21-year-old Palestinian tailor and follower of the exiled mufti of Jerusalem. The assassin was killed on the spot by Abdullah's guards.
Abdullah was succeeded for a short time by his son Talal, who abdicated in 1952 because of illness in favor of the 20-year-old Hussein. Almost immediately thereafter Jordan became less pliable to British interests and more so to those of the United States. In 1977 it was revealed that King Hussein had been a paid agent of the CIA for two decades.
Abu Hassan See SALAMEH, ALI HASSAN.
Aetius, Flavius (?–454)
Roman general and statesman Flavius Aetius was the dominant influence in court during the long reign of Emperor Valentinian III (425–455), who has been described by observers as foppish, lazy, and vicious. So great was Aetius's power that envoys from the provinces no longer were sent to the emperor but to him.
In addition to his other less-than-enviable characteristics, Valentinian was also fearful and untrusting, and he fell under the influence of Petronius Maximus, one of Rome's wealthiest men, former prefect of Rome and twice consul. Maximus, whose long-range (and successful) plan was to seize the throne for himself, and the eunuch Heraclius convinced Valentinian that Aetius was plotting against him, a charge that was not true. Aetius was occupied with repelling the advances of Attila the Hun, which he did temporarily at Troyes in 452. However, Maximus's allegations were given credit by the fact that Aetius was trying to espouse his son to the emperor's daughter, Eudocia. Maximus played on Valentinian's fears, suggesting that this would give Aetius a clear motive to assassinate the emperor. Valentinian worked himself into such a frenzy that on September 21, 454, he summoned Aetius and slew him with his own hand.
"Sire," a member of the court told the emperor, "you have cut off your right hand with your left." Within six months Valentinian III would be assassinated as well, part of Maximus's grand designs on the throne. (See VALENTINIAN III, EMPEROR OF ROME.)
Agrippina (the Younger) (16–59 C.E.)
Agrippina the Younger was the mother of Nero, and in her own right a competent ruler (a role she often played during her son's reign) and an accomplished assassin. She is believed to have poisoned her second husband, Caius Crispus, as she did her third, the emperor Claudius. Her driving motivation was to put her son Nero on the throne, and she did so by marrying Claudius and convincing him to adopt Nero as his son and name him as his heir ahead of his own son, Britannicus.
When Nero came to the throne, he let his mother conduct many of the duties of state. Agrippina even had her image face Nero's on Rome's gold coins. Inevitably, friction developed between the two, fueled by Seneca, the great philosopher and dramatist who had tutored Nero. Seneca sought to undermine Agrippina's hold on her son and in this way grasp the effective reins of government in his own hands. Even Burrus, Agrippina's previous ally, whom she had insinuated as prefect of the Praetorian Guard during Claudius's reign, joined against her. Infuriated, Agrippina declared that Britannicus was the true heir to the throne and threatened to unmake Nero by supporting her young stepson. Nero's camp countered by poisoning the youthful Britannicus in 55 C.E.
Agrippina was weakened but not destroyed, and a number of historians have attributed this to an Oedipal fixation on Nero's part. If this were so, it hardly prevented the dissolute emperor from having many other sexual interests. When Nero formed a liaison with an ex-slave named Claudia Acte, Agrippina was outraged. By contrast Seneca and Burrus encouraged the affair as another way to weaken Agrippina. Later Nero became infatuated with Poppaea, the beautiful wife of his friend Salvius Otho. Poppaea refused to be Nero's mistress but offered to marry him if he divorced his wife, the virtuous Octavia. Agrippina fought desperately against the proposed divorce, recognizing that Octavia represented one of her fading points of leverage on her son. Historians such as Tacitus and the gossipy Suetonius say that her defense of Octavia included surrendering her own body to her son. Unfortunately, Poppaea could fight back in kind, and the divorce went through.
It was probably Poppaea's urging — and her taunts that he was afraid of his mother — that finally turned Nero to the assassination of Agrippina. He considered a number of plans, but abandoned the idea of poison since Agrippina was so knowledgeable on the subject and actually took antidotes on a regular basis. The final plot was a bizarre one involving the sabotage of Agrippina's transport ship by constructing it with a collapsible roof. One night in 59 C.E. on a cruise to Baiae in the Bay of Naples, the roof was rigged to collapse in the hope that the entire ship would fall apart. It did not. A friend of Agrippina, Crepereius Gallus, happened to be standing in the cabin at that moment and was killed by the falling timbers. Agrippina and another friend, Acerronia, were reclining on settees and were uninjured. Oarsmen involved in the plot next unsuccessfully tried to capsize the craft by throwing their weight to one side. Realizing it was an assassination attempt and determined to save Agrippina, Acerronia cried out, "Help, I'm the emperor's mother!" In the darkness the murderous crewmen took her at her word and battered her to death with their oars. In the confusion Agrippina slipped over the side and managed to swim to safety.
Then Agrippina made a fatal mistake. Instead of hurrying to Rome and letting news of the murder attempt circulate, which would have signaled Nero as the obvious perpetrator and constrained him from attempting any further violence against her, she sent a message from Baiae to Nero that she had survived a terrible accident. Nero reacted quickly and with cunning. He threw a sword to the ground and cried out that Agrippina's messenger had been sent to murder him.
Nero dispatched his henchmen to Baiae, where they surprised Agrippina in her bedchamber. According to the historian Tacitus, she presented her belly to an attacker and told him to stab her in the womb that had borne Nero. She was slashed many times, and when the emperor later viewed the uncovered body, he supposedly remarked, "I did not know I had so beautiful a mother."
The required cover-up was left to Seneca, who wrote to the Senate in Nero's name, explaining that Agrippina had plotted against the emperor, and upon being detected, had committed suicide. The Senate accepted the story and turned out in a body to greet Nero on his return to Rome, offering thanks to the gods for having saved "the great Nero." (See BRITANNICUS; CLAUDIUS, EMPEROR OF ROME.)
Further reading:A Criminal History of Mankind, by Colin Wilson; The Story of Civilization III — Caesar and Christ, by Will Durant.
Aguirre Salinas, Osmin (1892–1977)
The 85-year-old former president of El Salvador was shot to death outside his home in San Salvador on July 12, 1977. In letters sent to radio stations, the Farabundo Martí Popular Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the murder. The organization was credited with many assassinations in El Salvador, although the total did not begin to approach the numbers killed by government-backed rightists and those employed by powerful landlords seeking to silence advocates of land reform.
The leftist guerrillas assassinated the elderly Aguirre to emphasize how long the land reform movement had sought, unsuccessfully, to achieve economic justice. Farbundo Martí declared it had "executed" Aguirre for his role in crushing a land reform campaign 45 years earlier, in 1932, when he was chief of police; 30,000 peasants had reportedly died in the police action. A retired army general, Aguirre became president for a few months late in 1944 in a military coup before being ousted early in 1945 in the same manner.
Alcibiades (ca. 450–404 B.C.E.)
In his day the Athenian statesman and general, Alcibiades, was the most famous man in Athens. Reared in the home of his near relative, Pericles, he was, says Will Durant, "admired for his eloquence, his good looks, his versatile genius, even his faults and crimes." Alcibiades suffered no shortage in any of these characteristics: At times he was forced to flee Athens under a death penalty and join the Spartans, the enemies of Athens, only to return to Athens later, hailed as its savior. If it is true, as is often theorized, that an ideal candidate for assassination is one who enjoys great love from a great many people and great hatred from others, Alcibiades met these criteria to the fullest.
In his youth Alcibiades was a frequent companion of Socrates (each was to save the other's life in war), although he never absorbed much of the philosopher's moral and ethical teachings nor did he let them affect his personal behavior. There is little doubt that Alcibiades could have been one of the greatest of Greek leaders, but his unscrupulousness played a key role in provoking the tragic political antagonisms in Athens that were the chief cause of its defeat by Sparta in the long Peloponnesian War.
Although brilliant and fearless in combat, Alcibiades frequently changed sides because of the opposition he constantly invited. Thus he led the Athenian forces, then he joined the Spartan side, then the Persians, then back to the Athenians and then back to the Persians. An aristocrat, he found only one rival for the leadership of Athens after the death of Pericles — the rich and pious Nicias. Since Nicias favored the aristocrats and advocated peace with Sparta, Alcibiades veered in favor of the commercial classes and called for an imperialism that electrified Athenian pride. Durant notes, "He violated a hundred laws and injured a hundred men, but no one dared bring him before a court."
Losing some prestige when he was defeated by the Spartans at Mantinea in 418B.C.E., Alcibiades promoted the Sicilian campaign in 415 B.C.E. He was in transit when he was recalled to Athens to stand trial on charges of sacrilege, accused of having led a party in a drunken foray through Athens and knocking off the ears, noses, and phalli from the figures of the god Hermes, which stood before many public buildings and private residences as the patron of fertility and the guardian of the home. There were additional charges that Alcibiades and his followers had profaned the Eleusianian Mysteries. Alcibiades started to sail back for Athens, but on learning that his enemies had succeeded in having him sentenced to death in absentia, he, most likely innocent of the charges, turned traitor and journeyed to Sparta, where he advised his former foes on how best to defeat the Athenians.
In Sparta Alcibiades also reinforced his reputation with women by seducing the wife of Spartan king Agis II. The queen bore Alcibiades a son, and she whispered to her friends with considerable pride that he was the father. The Athenian himself told his intimates that he simply could not resist the chance to father a possible future king of Laconia. When the king returned from a military campaign, Alcibiades saw this as the opportune time to head for Asia with a Spartan naval squadron. Hearing that Agis had ordered him killed, Alcibiades took flight, joining the Persian admiral Tissaphernes at Sardis.
In 411 B.C.E. Alcibiades was able to return to Athens in triumph, the democratic forces having routed the oligarchs. The Athenians, observing how badly the city had fared militarily in recent years, were eager to offer him amnesty for all his intrigues. Alcibiades led the Athenians to a brilliant naval victory at Cyzicus in 410 B.C.E. In 408 B.C.E. he recovered Byzantium. However, in 406 B.C.E. he was unjustly blamed for the defeat of the Athenian fleet at Notium, when his strict orders not to engage the Spartans were disobeyed, and he retired to a castle in Thrace. When the Athenians at Aegospotami facing the Spartans in the Hellespont in 405 B.C.E. grew increasingly careless, the great military man warned them of the danger. The Athenians chose to ignore his advice, and the entire Athenian fleet was lost to the Spartan admiral Lysander.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Encyclopedia of Assassinations"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Carl Sifakis.
Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
