French Assassination in 1968 .. truth or hoax?"

Factual Questions
1

This must have happened in the late 60s / early 70s (I’m guessing). I’ve seen the footage, this man steps up to a podium in front of a large room full of people, like some kind of press conference. He puts a gun in his mouth and shoots. It may have been on live TV, but there is definitely video footage of it. He might have been some ambassador or leader of some European country (?)

I think this is fairly famous footage, it might even be included in one of the faces of death “movies”?

I hate to bring this to GQ, because it seems like I should be able to find this pretty easily. But without his name, I’ve got nothing to start with here.

Who was that guy?

2

“Bud” Dwyer, a treasurer of the state of Pennsylvania convicted of embezzlement in office, who killed himself shortly before his sentencing in 1987. A web search on “bud dwyer” is more than sufficient.

3

R. Budd Dwyer. There’s been a couple of threads about him on this board. There was a song about him called Hey Man Nice Shot.

4

R. Budd Dwyer (died 22 January 1987)

This Pennsylvania state treasurer staged the best-known televised suicide. About to be sentenced on charges of conspiracy, mail fraud, perjury, and racketeering for taking a $300,000 kickback on a state computer contract, Dwyer convened a press conference in his office. While the film rolled, he handed out a twenty-page press statement, made a few remarks, then placed the barrel of a .357 revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger. The tape was shown on the nightly news.

From this page at Snopes, about halfway down.

5

I think that perhaps I am confusing two things.

I found a video of the Budd Dwyer suicide, and that is not the one I am thinking of.

I did some more searching, and found it. The following is taken from http://www.urbanlegends.com take on the movie “faces of death”. (actual page is here.)

I guess this is probably what I was remembering. I thought he shot himself, but I probably just combined this video with the Budd Dwyer one in my shoddy memory.

Does anyone know if this actually happened?

The reason I’m curious–last night at trivia we had a question “Who committed the first murder on live TV?” The obvious answer, Jack Ruby, was the right one, but I keep thinking of this video.

6

The mods were nice enough to change the title of this for me. I’m going to bump this for the night crew, hopefully someone knows.

7

I can’t find any information even to show that somebody named Jean Voisier was the head of a French political party, let alone that he was killed on camera. (I mean, other than the film, which is full of fakes anyway.) As far as I can determine, the only two people shot and killed on live TV are Lee Harvey Oswald and Chris Chubbock (a news anchor in Sarasota, Florida who committed suicide in 1974 in the middle of a news broadcast). The Budd Dwyer suicide was shown on TV at least once, but it was a showing of a filmed press conference, not a live one.

8

If you kill yourself is it considered assassination? Methinks suicide is the better term.

From Webster’s:

I have a hard time applying this to killing oneself. But it may just be me.

9

I really do appreciate the Websters definition.

I invite you to re-read my post starting off with “I think that perhaps I am confusing two things.” It’s about 4 posts above this one.

10

Point taken. To me the thread title and the OP just didn’t jive.

The French part of your OP and the “Faces of Death” reference seem to have a lot in common with Frederick Forsyth’s classic The Day of the Jackal.
crc

11

I realize rereading this that I was probably more snippy than I should have been. Apologies.

This thread was origianlly titled “Who was that guy who shot himself…” – Then, in the referenced post above, I realized that I was confusing two different events. I emailed the mods and asked them to change the title for me.

12

I discussed this topic with someone today and they claimed that Bobby Kennedy’s murder in 1968 was on live TV. Is this correct? I know that there are still photographs and perhaps videotape or film of the event, but was the murder (which was just after a press conference which was shown live on TV) also shown live?

13

I remember seeing that on live TV and no, it happened just after he went off camera. He had just left the podium and was in the kitchen behind the conference room when it happened. I’ve been in that room in the old Ambassador Hotel, it’s a really creepy place.