Murder to no purpose
Alan Campbell
ASSASSINATION by Miles Hudson Sutton, £19.99, pp. 256 This is an interesting and stimulating book by an author whose earlier works have been concerned largely with recent or contemporary history. Miles Hudson is not a professional historian but has had wide, practical experience in the field of interna- tional affairs, including a spell of four years as political secretary to Sir Alec Douglas- Home. Assassination spans a period of no less than 2,000 years.
Hudson asks whether political assassina- tions have influenced the course of history at all, and if they have in what way. He takes 18 examples, ranging from Julius Caesar to Martin Luther King and includ- ing Christ, Gandhi, Trotsky and King Abdulla of Jordan. His conclusion is that in general the presumed political aim was not achieved. For the most part, the assassina- tions are now seen to have been futile, and to have had only a limited impact on subse- quent events.
The author faced a formidable task in describing the background to episodes which cover such a vast period. Inevitably there will be criticism of his summaries of certain situations, and his choice of sub- jects. I was doubtful about the inclusion of Christ, and would have welcomed that of Aldo Moro, the Italian prime minister assassinated in 1978.
Some passages work better than others. I particularly admired those on Field Mar- shal Sir Henry Wilson and Michael Collins and on Marat and Trotsky. I was less taken with the chapter on Alexander II and Lin- coln, perhaps because the Russian and American scenes were so different as to make the comparison too far-fetched.
The style is breezy, with an excessive use of the exclamation mark, but the judgments struck me as very fair and I found the book thoroughly enjoyable.
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