Whenever I see world leaders jetting around, meeting other leaders and doing tours, it is surprising to me that these visits are not more risky. There are a lot of crackpots out there, and, for some leaders, millions with a legitimate grievance (though I’ll say again, just as in the thread title, I am not advocating the killing of anyone).
And as numerous experts would say in the aftermath of the first attempt on Trump, a skilled assassin could make a shot from hundreds of metres away.
Just how can you make a populous area of that radius safe? And, as a side question, has anyone lived or worked close to where a world leader was due to appear…were you made to just shut down / clear off for the day?
Yes, this. Living in Ottawa, we see what prep they do when the US President is coming to town. You wouldn’t believe it, really. Those of us who work in areas close to where they’ll be travelling/staying are usually encouraged to take the day off, or work from home if possible.
They do things like weld manhole covers shut, so you can’t pop up out of it and shoot. They have advance teams to check everything out.
My office used to overlook the Museum of Civilization on the Quebec side of the river, which was going to host a fancy dinner with the President. A few days before he arrived, I watched them setting up sniper’s nests on the roof, and saw then checking out all the buildings that surround it - like mine. I had a pair of binoculars I was using to watch them, and saw one of them looking right back at me with his binoculars.
Whole streets get shut down for hours sometimes for the motorcades. The airport shuts down just before and for a while after AF1 arrives or departs.
I live less than two miles from an Air Force base about 20 miles from Boston. I can remember many times it came out that the current president and/or vp had landed there for whatever reason. There never was any announcements or fuss made about it to the public. I once happened to be in a car at a stop light when a bunch of black limos with some motorcycle outriders passed by, that’s it.
Here’s my anecdotal experience: in the summer of 1990, the G7 Summit was held at my university in Houston (Rice University). Numerous world leaders were present, including President Bush. I was a student at the time and was working at the university for the summer.
I was told I would be working at home for a few days as they restricted access to all but necessary people and staff. (I was doing a computer project for a professor which required lugging a bunch of equipment home because this was before the advent of laptop computers).
All summer classes were paused for the event.
In addition to restricting access and locking the whole campus down for the whole event, I also heard they welded shut all of the manhole covers on campus. That’s all I know because I was literally kicked out for the whole event.
My only other brush with this type of thing was when I had dinner at a restaurant (in a private room) once with a four-star general who was actually the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and his family in Europe. (His wife and my mother were friends.) The security surrounding him was quite elaborate. I was sent out to the car to get a camera (this was before cell phones) to take a group photo, and I passed by numerous heavily-armed bodyguards.
It would be pretty irresponsible of them to announce in advance where the VIP is going to be, would it not?
Like the times Angela Merkel or whoever popped into a random pub or cafe… they will discreetly check it out first, but it was not known to the public where and when she would be.
ETA an official summit or state visit— that is a different story, because everybody does know in advance exactly where they will be.
Cultural traditions, especially the history (or absence thereof) of political violence, plays a big role. In some European countries, e.g. in Scandinavia, it is perfectly common for top-level leaders to walk around without any personal protection in their everyday lives.
I would have to think that it is about to get a LOT more risky. All you would need is an insect-mimicking drone, with a poison vial inside, flies up and stings the target, (hopefully) gets away, and that is that unless an antidote can be found quickly. All of the bodyguards will be useless against such a threat.
Super sophisticated security, about which I won’t go into detail because it has been very well described in detail already, is obviously one reason.
I believe another reason may be the result of the Martin Luther King, Jr., assassination. They didn’t blot him out. Instead, they turned him into a martyr, a hero, and a civil rights icon. Assassination can very well result in the exact opposite of what was intended. It immortalizes that which you want to eliminate. 9/11 didn’t cripple and demoralize America, it galvanized an entire nation We rained hell on them instead.
The best example was King Christian X of Denmark, who rode his horse daily through Copenhagen during the German occupation, without any guards or even a groom:
King Christian used to ride daily through the streets of Copenhagen unaccompanied while the people stood and waved to him. One apocryphal story relates that one day, a German soldier remarked to a young boy that he found it odd that the King would ride with no bodyguard. The boy reportedly replied, “All of Denmark is his bodyguard.” This story was recounted in Nathaniel Benchley’s bestselling book Bright Candles as well as in Lois Lowry’s book Number the Stars . The contemporary patriotic song “Der rider en Konge” (“There Rides a King”) centers on the King’s rides. In this song, the narrator replies to a foreigner’s inquiry about the King’s lack of a guard that “he is our freest man” and that the King is not shielded by physical force but that “hearts guard the king of Denmark.”
One question is about non-political assassinations. When Nashville came out in 1975, the idea of assassinating a person for non-political reasons was almost unheard of. Then in 1980 John Lennon was assassinated. Brian Thompson was assassinated. But Rebecca Schaeffer probably would not be considered an assassination, just shot by a psycho fan. So when is it an assassination and not just the murder of a celebrity?
I shook hands once with PM Chrétien, purely by accident.
I was leaving my office building for lunch and there was a line of people on the street. Just as I came out the door, there was the Prime Minister, shaking hands with everyone in the line. He grabbed my hand, shook it, and kept on going down the line.
I didn’t see any heavy presence of guards. I’m sure there were some there, but I’m also sure that wouldn’t have happened in the US with the President.
I saw him in his limo, from about four feet away one morning. I was at the bus stop on my way to work, and his limo stopped for a red light, and his window just happened to end up right in front of me. I waved, and he waved back.
I also ended up just behind Stephen Harper at the movies one time. I was waiting in line for popcorn, and noticed the guy in front of my had an earpiece in. He looked at me and made a joke about how long the line was, and just then, the guy in front of him turned around, and it was Harper holding a bag of popcorn.
I’m watching the news … Tupac Shakur was assassinated, Biggie Smalls assassinated, struck down by assassin’s bullets … no, they wasn’t. Martin Luther King was assassinated, Malcolm X was assassinated, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Them two n***as got shot! Shit, I love Tupac, I love Biggie, but school will be open on their birthday!
I also passed John Turner, then the leader of the Opposition, walking down Wellington Street in Ottawa. And saw Chrétien slip into a movie theatre, just after lights went down, when he was leader of the Opposition. I think Madame Chrétien was the only one with him.
Conversely, we always knew when Harper was attending a RedBlacks game, because they’d set up a surveillance team on top of the Northside stands.
When he attended the game just after Nathan Cirrillo was shot, he was actually just behind me. Security was absolutely swarming the top of the stairs in my section, but he did shake a lot of hands at half-time.
Dan Quayle visited the building I worked in so I got to see them set up snipers, walk the bomb sniffing dogs around, etc. One seemed pretty interested in my lunch. I commented to one Secret Service guy about the extensive setup. he laughed and said, “Heck you should see what we do if the President is visiting!” No respect for Dan!
On the subject of well publicized presidential visits I will note that they close off any overpasses completely where the motorcade will pass and post guards on the overpass itself.
I’m not advocating “innocent by mental illness” type defense.
But murder in the 1st degree usually means you planned the whole thing out and knew what you were doing.
For examples see the TV show “Columbo”. The killers are always portrayed as intelligent people with some tangible goal. Only to be thwarted by our hero Columbo.
Assassinating a political figure, CEO, or celebrity involves a lot of mental illness to your plan and goal you want to achieve. Jodi Foster isn’t going to marry you because you killed Reagan.
So you have to have a mentally ill person who has to have the mental wherewithal to effectively circumvent significant security measures. This is rare combination.
State sponsored assassination is rare because world leaders have an unspoken agreement that maybe we shouldn’t try to kill each other.
Terrorist organizations? They seem to try every once in a while. But I would tend to put terrorist in the “mental illness” category. The IRA attack on the Grand Hotel? Was the United Kingdom going to exit Northern Ireland because you blew up Thatcher?
Also of course once there’s an organization it starts to have a footprint and can be infiltrated / hacked. Using methods that are not known to the public.