Channel: The Film Archives

Category: Education

Description: Listen to the book: amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&tag=tra0c7-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=72cf442f293aa9c43f5d1803934cd95a&camp=1789&creative=9325&index=books&keywords=perfect%20kill%20baer Robert Booker Baer (born July 11, 1952) is an American author and a former CIA case officer who was primarily assigned to the Middle East. He is Time's intelligence columnist and has contributed to Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Baer speaks eight languages, won the CIA Career Intelligence Medal and is a frequent commentator and author about issues related to international relations, espionage, and U.S. foreign policy. He hosted the History reality television series Hunting Hitler. He is an Intelligence and Security Analyst for CNN. His book See No Evil was adapted by the director Stephen Gaghan and used as the basis for the film Syriana, with George Clooney playing Baer's character. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Baer Liaquat Ali Khan, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, was assassinated by Saad Akbar, a lone assassin, in 1951. Conspiracy theorists believe his conflict with certain members of the Pakistani military (the Rawalpindi Conspiracy) or suppression of communists and antagonism towards the Soviet Union, were potential reasons for his assassination. On July 20, 1951, King Abdullah I of Jordan was shot dead at the entrance of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem as he was arriving for Friday prayers by a Palestinian fearing the king would make peace with the Israelis. In the 14 July Revolution of 1958 in Iraq, King Faisal II of Iraq was assassinated in the royal family's overthrow. In 1960, Inejiro Asanuma, the chairman of the Japanese Socialist Party, was stabbed to death by Otoya Yamaguchi. On May 30, 1961, Dominican Republic President Rafael Trujillo was shot dead in an assassination plot to end his three decades of dictatorial rule. On March 25, 1975, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot dead at point-blank range by his nephew, Faisal bin Musaid Al Saud, who had just returned from the United States. On August 27, 1975, Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia was murdered by Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Asfaw on the orders of the Derg. The U.S. Senate Select Committee, chaired by Senator Frank Church (the Church Committee), reported in 1975 that it had found "concrete evidence of at least eight plots involving the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro from 1960 to 1965."[23] On November 27, 1978, San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by former City Supervisor Dan White for respectively lobbying against and refusing to reappoint White to the Board of Supervisors following his resignation. Most major powers repudiated Cold War assassination tactics, but many allege that was merely a smokescreen for political benefit and that covert and illegal training of assassins continues today, with Russia, Israel, the U.S., Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and other nations accused of engaging in such operations.[24] In 1986, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who has survived an assassination attempt himself, ordered the Operation El Dorado Canyon air raid on Libya in which one of the primary targets was the home residence of Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi. Gaddafi escaped unharmed, but his adopted daughter Hanna was claimed to be one of the civilian casualties. In the Philippines, the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr., triggered the eventual downfall of the 20-year autocratic rule of President Ferdinand Marcos. Aquino, a former senator and a leading figure of the political opposition, was assassinated in 1983 at the Manila International Airport (now the Ninoy Aquino International Airport) after he had returned home from exile. His death thrust his widow, Corazon Aquino into the limelight and, ultimately, the presidency after the peaceful 1986 EDSA Revolution. After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the new Islamic government of Iran began an international campaign of assassination that lasted into the 1990s. At least 162 killings in 19 countries have been linked to the senior leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran.[25] The campaign came to an end after the Mykonos restaurant assassinations because a German court publicly implicated senior members of the government and issued arrest warrants for Ali Fallahian, the head of Iranian intelligence.[26] Evidence indicates that Fallahian's personal involvement and individual responsibility for the murders were far more pervasive than his current indictment record represents.[27] On September 17, 1980, Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle was assassinated in an ambush in Paraguay. Anwar Sadat, the president of the Arab Republic of Egypt (formerly the president of the United Arab Republic), was assassinated October 6, 1981, during the annual parade celebrating Operation Badr, the opening maneuver of the Yom Kippur War. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination