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‘The Scarlet A’ : Assassination and the US Official Record from the Cold War to 9/11
Luca Trenta 
The Official Record
Swansea University Author:
Luca Trenta
DOI (Published version): 10.7765/9781526174338.00008
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the place of assassination in US foreign policy, in its language and in the Official Record. Through a documentary analysis, the chapter highlights how multiple Administrations worked to preserve assassination as a policy option while engaging in a concerted effort to remove...
| Published in: | The Official Record |
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| ISBN: | 9781526174338 9781526174321 |
| Published: |
Manchester
Manchester University Press
2024
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa64988 |
| Abstract: |
This chapter focuses on the place of assassination in US foreign policy, in its language and in the Official Record. Through a documentary analysis, the chapter highlights how multiple Administrations worked to preserve assassination as a policy option while engaging in a concerted effort to remove assassination from the Official Record. The chapter starts with an analysis of the 1950s and 1960s by exploring the individuals targeted and the language used by the US government. It highlights the pervasiveness both of assassination and of circumlocutory language, innuendos and euphemisms to describe assassination operations. It also showcases efforts by US officials to distance the US government from assassination, tampering with the Official Record. Starting with the explosive CIA ‘Family jewels’ collection, the next section explores the so-called ‘season of inquiry’. It looks at the Ford Administration’s reaction, including the Rockefeller Commission, the effort to stymie the Church Committee’s investigation and its interim report on assassination. It analyses the establishment of Executive Order 11905 which included a ban on assassination. The vagueness of the ban enabled the Reagan Administration to reinterpret it in ways that permitted the pursuit of its preferred policies. Finally, the influence of the Reagan Administration’s interpretations of the ban in the years prior to 9/11 is explored. The chapter concludes that these political and legal developments permitted the removal of assassination from the language of US foreign policy, opening the way for the proliferation of so-called ‘targeted killings’. |
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| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |