FIFTY YEARS OF POLITICAL ASSASSINATIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100100074-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 74
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/02 :CIA-RDP90-012088000100100074-1
THE At~IF~t'-tICF^?~i i~tE?ZCU'RY
Zdint er , 1975
BY JAMES J_ ?~IAR~i'Ii~t
ome An;er:cans have become
much perturbed over the subject
of political assassinations in recent
months. Tl:e principal cat!se I~as been the
vast publicity gi~?en to the efforts of the
Senate Committee headed by Frank
Church of Idaho which has been investi-
gating the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA). \Ve have been treated to Sen.
Church's tremulous and breathless expostu-
lations on radio and TV, the latter accom-
panied by nen~ous finger exercises, mainly
over the possibility that the deep cover
activities of t}te LSA's massively fi:~anced
and globally disp:rsed super-spy agency
during the regency of Pres. John F. Ken-
ned}' involved plots to assassinate Soviet
P.ussia's political harlequin diversion in the
Western Hemisphere, Fidel Castro of Cuba.
Sen. Church has shown no accompanying
concern over the subsequent assassination
of Pres. Kennedy himself. The presumption
may be that the entire story is in the
record with respect to the latter.
To rolrnd thins out, ex-governor of
California Ronald Reagan, in one of his
radio spots, charged that Adolf Hitler
introduced political assassination to the
modern world scene. 1Vhatever the quality
of hir. Reagan's performance, this pri-
marily. indicated that those preparing his
material have Iitile knowledge of or use for
history, even that of recent times. The
record shows that the 1-titler regime en-
gaged in no assassinstion enterprise at all,
but was itself the object of a number, both
before and during World 11'ar 11, including
the botched attempt on Hitler himself, on
July 20, 1944.,
1Vhat ex-Gov. Reagan's researchers
might have dare for him, in view of his
pedigree as a "conservative," was to have
provided him with chapter a:~d verse oa [he
scores of assassinations carried ota by
r-arious agencies of Communist Russia, the
state which long ago brought political
assassination to the level of a sc!ence.
Included in this has been the repeated
charges of contriving of sensational "sui-
cides," usually involving falls from v:in-
dows ~of high buildings or alleged self-in-
flicted gw~shot wounds. Another ploy has
been kidnappings and the subsequent E:er-
manent disappearance of the victims, ~a
somewhat less sensational but jt!st as ef-
fective meats of removing obstreperotu or
"non-cooperative" a:~ti-Communist public
figures' of one sort or another, includinG
defectors.
fflatteotti and Villari
Leftist "anti-fascists" of all stripes, es-
pecially So~zet fellow travelers, far several
decades managed to make much political
hay out of two political assassinations
which they char,ed to their hated adver-
caries, Benito Diussalini and Adolf }~itler.
in neifher.case does the evidence support
them, but their fanciful yarns have long
been entrenched nevertheless.. TI! frst
involves the kidnapping and subsequent
death of Ciacomo;`iatteatii in Rome, 3une
]0, 192=1, i?iatteotti, a Socialist member of
the Chamber of Deputies, known as a
syrr!pathizer with Italy's enemies is World
\ti'ar One, ~~~as also a wealthy landowner,
rot a proletarian toiler, as his political .
affiliations suggested. `i
Lui; i Villari poi:tts ot!t in his Italian `
Foreign Polic}' Uirder .'Vhrssoli~ri (\'ew
Fork: Devin-Adair, 196), that Aiatteoiti's
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co~tinuec!
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/02 :CIA-RDP90-012088000100100074-1