50 years ago, in Feb 1976, President #GeraldFord signed Executive Order 11905, which directed that “no employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political #assassination.” There should be no tears…for #Khamenei, who for 4 decades oversaw a repressive state with terroristic tentacles that extended throughout the world. But it is worth looking at why presidents of both political parties have long been wary of the #StateSponsoredMurder of foreign leaders.
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50 years ago, in Feb 1976, President #GeraldFord signed Executive Order 11905, which directed that “no employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political #assassination.” There should be no tears…for #Khamenei, who for 4 decades oversaw a repressive state with terroristic tentacles that extended throughout the world. But it is worth looking at why presidents of both political parties have long been wary of the #StateSponsoredMurder of foreign leaders.
As a US representative, Ford was a member of the #WarrenCommission, which investigated the #assassination of President #JohnFKennedy. The experience affected him profoundly. During a site visit to the Texas School Book Depository, the members of the committee took a rifle similar to the one used by Lee Harvey Oswald & looked through its scope at the traffic below. “Kennedy had been my friend,” Ford later recalled. “The thought we were reconstructing his assassination sent a chill down my spine.”
When Ford learned as president that the #CIA had engaged members of the #Mafia in a failed effort to kill #FidelCastro during the #Eisenhower & #Kennedy years,he was dismayed & decided to form a special commission to investigate abuses by the intelligence community & suggest reforms. Days after announcing the formation of the #RockefellerCommission in Jan 1975, Ford accidentally shared at an off-the-record lunch with execs & editors from NYT that his concern about abuses involved #assassination.
While awkwardly trying to make a point about the continuing importance of secrecy, Ford told his guests that he had learned of some #CIA activities that, if made public, would undermine the reputation of his Cold War predecessors. When asked for an example, the president absentmindedly responded, “Like assassinations.” Although the Times respected the ground rules, this was too juicy not to leak.
Within a month, the president’s comment became news, & public reaction to it & to earlier reporting about the #CIA …sparked 2 congressional investigations into the #assassination plots…. Despite his unintentional leak, Ford was already predisposed to doing something to end this dark presidential legacy. “Although none of these assassinations had been carried out,” Ford later wrote in his memoirs, “the fact that government officials had even considered them was distressing.”
A year later, Ford signed the EO to make sure such operations didn’t happen again.
Ford’s successors broadened the scope of his #assassination ban. First #JimmyCarter & then #RonaldReagan dropped the qualifier of “political.” Reagan directed that “no person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” Reagan’s version of the assassination ban remains in effect, last amended by #Bush in 2008. #Trump didn’t revoke it.
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