I’m not a conspiracy theorist, and I’m not saying that all of the assassinations of high profile controversial figures in the 60s were connected, but there would seem to be a reason that so many people did die by assassination then and yet it’s extremely rare now. Just going with the high profile assassinations for a 4.5 year period-
November 22, 1963: John F. Kennedy
November 24, 1963: Lee Harvey Oswald
February 21, 1965: Malcolm X
August 25, 1967: George Lincoln Rockwell (American Nazi party leader)
April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King
June 6, 1968: Robert F. Kennedy
All have conspiracy theories and tangential connections of course. All were hated by J. Edgar Hoover. JFK died the same month as the Ngo brothers (Diem and Nhu) were killed in Vietnam. Etc. etc. While I doubt these are significant factors (though I also think it’s an odd coincidence so many were assassinated by “lone nuts” who kept diaries that pretty much read “I’m a lone nut- just me”).
Since then there were the two unconnected she-assassins who went after Ford, the shooting of Reagan and of John Lennon, but generally there seem fewer actual attempts on the lives of public figures.
Clinton and Farrakhan and Phelps and Bush are just three figures who have passionate detractors and haters, but none had major attempts on their lives.
Do you think the difference in then and now is the mindset of the 60s? Or the fact the 60s was so close to WW2? Or better security now? J. Edgar Hoover’s death (the month Wallace was shot)? Just a fluke? The Information Explosion?
Well, at least in the JFK case, security on the President is much stricter now - no open car motorcades, etc. I’m sure it’s much harder to shoot a President now than it was in 1963. No answer to the rest, though.
I think a big answer is that there isn’t as much important political activism going on. The 60’s were a time for major changes in this country, and so it seems natural (to me) that the leaders of these big new movements would be subject to assassination attempts.
Of course we have political activism now, but it just isn’t as influential. I mean, look at the peace movement. Why assassinate Cindy Sheehan? She damages the cause by staying alive. Same with Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton in the civil rights movement.
What I mean is, there are less attempts because there are less targets.
ETA: This might make a good GD too, “What caused the 60’s to be such a time of political turmoil in the US” Maybe I will write it after lunch…
It was S.O.P. for the CIA until all those accountability wussies showed up. Next thing you know, there’s paper trails, constant scrutiny from the godless communist media and now they’re just a bunch of desk jockeys, as opposed to the real men who went out and killed whomever they didn’t like. [/some vitriolic old spook]
Presidential assassination attempts or genuine attempts are much more common than people believe even if they had a brief news report on it before. All presidents since Kennedy (except for Lyndon Johnson :dubious: ) have undegone assassination attempts although some of them were attempted by people that just weren’t quite right and hence not very threatening to the president’s wellbeing. Saddam Hussein tried to assasinate Bush senior while Bush Jr. had a real grenade thrown at his podium in the Republic of Georgia and it didn’t detonate because of malfunction.
I have a friend (if you can call him that because he is so screwed up) that was the son of his SS Agent father on presidential detail. He HATES his father because of the life that the whole family had to lead because of it. His father would get a meesage in the middle of the night and rush out without saying anything or when he would be back. He says it happens all the time. Apparently SS agents on presidential detail are a special breed and hyper-paranoid because their own career and life is on the line as well.
The security is vastly better but there are still plenty of people that want to try.
Two … there were two assassination attempts on Gerald Ford (the mind boggles!). Sarah Jane Moore and Squeaky Fromme. Squeaky! Two separate people tried to kill Ford and one of them was called “Squeaky”!
I cannot image trying to kill Ford once, never mind twice. Of course, both of the women (!) had been famous (or infamous) in the past, and were trying to recapture that (in)famity.
Presidential security is tighter, so it’s harder to do successfully. The last successful attempt was Kennedy in 1963.
Don’t know if I should add these, since you’ve framed a great thread question already, but there’s also:
Medgar Evers, a civil rights worker in Mississippi, assassinated in June 1963;
Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins, aged 11 to 14, in the Birmingham, September 1963 Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing – definitely political in its motivations and implications;
Ben Chester White, a black plantation caretaker – tangentially political because it’s purpose was to lure MLK to Mississippi to be killed in 1966.
here.