Customer Reviews

American Assassins: The Darker Side of Politics

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I first came across this book in preparation to direct the musical "Assassins". It was extremely helpful, because of its extremely insightful look into the 16 men and women who have tried (successfully and unsuccessfully) to assassinate national political figures, including (but not limited to) the President. Clarke has a simple, easy to read chapter on each assassin. He explains that very few of these people were actually insane, and goes on to suggest that thinking them insane does not serve to explain them, and therefore does not help to prevent future assassinations. He explains their actions without excusing them, and allows us to understand them and their acts without presuming them "insane" or "evil" ahead of time. I highly recommend this book.

This book was great. It was full-filling, Clarke places the asssasins and victims in their times (their environment). For instance, when I first read about Boothe and Lincoln I did not know that President Lincoln was targeted for kidnapping and then scheduled to be handed over to the confederates with the help of Boothe and his associates (which failed and lead to the assassination). This book was indepth, but easy to read. For people interested in assassinations this book is a must, and if for the people who are not "it is definitely interesting." This book should be used as a text book for criminology classes at the University level because of its multi-dimensional structure and scholarly presentation.

For those of you familiar with the Stephen Sondheim musical Assassins, this book is essential to understand the show's themes in a historical context. Clarke suggests that there's something uniquely American about these assassinations, and his conclusions are as brilliant as they are disturbing.

I recently read "On Being Mad or Merely Angry: John W. Hinckley, Jr., and Other Dangerous People" by this author. Because Hinckley did his work too late for inclusion in this book, Mr. Clarke wrote a skinny book about Hinckley. In it Mr. Clarke references this book -"American Assassins"- and many of the assassins who he wrote of. I thus know that Mr. Clarke considers Sirhan Sirhan perfectly sane and says that he acted rationally! Sirhan Sirhan is widely believed to have been hypno-programmed as a Manchurian Candidate by many lawyers, police and psychiatrists. He appeared to be profoundly mentally ill at the time of the assassination. To this day Sirhan Sirhan -who is still alive in the California State Prison system- denies that he shot Robert F. Kennedy.

You should also be made aware that Mr. Clarke never mentions that John Hinckley was a part of the neo-Nazi movement and had visited with and hung out with neo-Nazi's in Lincoln, Nebraska just two weeks before the assassination. James W. Clarke states -and I quote- "Hinckley went to Lincoln Nebraska to interview a member of the American Nazi party." (!)

"Interview"? Was Hinckley a reporter? This is one of the most bizarre and blatantly fraudulent statements I have ever read anywhere. No explanation for this statement is provided anywhere in the text or the footnotes.

Many people on the "left" in America never wanted to admit that neo-Nazi's could have hated Ronald Reagan who they -the Nazis- referred to as a "kosher conservative". James W. Clarke continues to perpetuate the lie that Hinckley was solely motivated by his obsessive desire for Jody Foster.

Expect that all the establishment lies about these assassins -and accused assassins- are continued within the pages of "American Assassins".

Beware disinformation my eye -- this is a thoughtful treatise on the assassin's mind. JFK conspiracy buffs focus on ballistics which, like statistics, can be molded to make your case. But knowing the true Oswald is the best immunization against the conspiracy nuts, for no narcissistic depressed loner like Oswald would EVER have been recruited by ANYONE for ANYTHING! The JFK conspiracy industry is just the insane underbelly of our already narcissistic and paranoid country.

Princeton University Press published this book by a Political Science professor at Arizona. It is a psychological study which aims to sort various assassins into several "types."

While the book has a certain merit when discussing 19th Century political murderers and mandmen, it is full of outright disinformation about the murders of the Kennedy brothers. Oswald never met Sylvia Duran; she was tortured by the CIA and forced to "confess" that she had met him. CIA officials such as David Phillips have admitted under oath that the visitor to the Embassy where Ms. Duran worked was NOT Oswald. See Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, University of California Press 1992.