AMERICAN ASSASSINS The Darker Side of Politics

Hardback. From Richard Lawrence, who attempted to shoot President Andrew Jackson in 1835, to the assailants of contemporary American political leaders, this book probes the lives of 16 individuals who tried to kill or did kill American presidents and other prominent politicians. Lawrence, who misfired two pistols one after the other at a frail and elderly Jackson, thought himself to be King Richard III of England. He was so obviously insane that he was acquitted of his crime, to spend the rest of his life in a mental institution. What of the other assassins asks the author? Was John Wilkes Booth nothing other than a crazy actor, motivated by an insanely jealous desire for fame and recognition? Were the anarchist beliefs of McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, the delusions of a madman? Can Sirhan Sirhan's Arab nationalism be dismissed as an expression of oedipal conflict? In studies of the 16 assassins and would-be assassins, the author introduces evidence of real differences among men and women who until then had been lumped together under the rubic of what the author calls a pathological theory of assassination. Illus., Notes, Bibliog. and Index. 321pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. Vg. in Vg. dw.