
A Study of Assassination – CIA (1953) - ferdo
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/ciaguat2.html
======
Eliezer
"Automobile accidents are a less satisfactory means of assassination. If the
subject is deliberately run down, very exact timing is necessary and
investigation is likely to be thorough. If the subject's car is tampered with,
reliability is very low. The subject may be stunned or drugged and then placed
in the car, but this is only reliable when the car can be run off a high cliff
or into deep water without observation."

~~~
sliverstorm
Sounds like Hitchcock knew what he was doing after all!

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_by_Northwest#Plot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_by_Northwest#Plot)

~~~
sliverstorm
For those who have not seen the movie, by the way-

1) Go watch it

2) Someone tries to do exactly what was just described as "reliable" to the
protagonist

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mc32
That was probably true back in '53.

Since; the science of accident reconstruction and cause determination have
improved vastly.

Back then the mafia (or whomever) might have thought, eh, cyanide, who's going
to trace that? Nowadays tests would prove something untoward likely happened.
It's how nowadays nurses are caught for 'easing terminally ill patients', back
then, it would have seemed like, oh, that was the disease, "natural causes".

In other words, this option would be a desperate option, one where discovery
of tampering would be revealed. Only someone really desperate and without
other alternatives would be reduced to opting. Someone stupid.

~~~
runjake
If this document contained modern TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, Procedures) it
wouldn't be declassified. This is a historical document. This is also probably
a repost. This document has been around for 2-3 decades.

~~~
theorique
If it's dated 1953, it's been around for six decades. Unless you mean it's
been publicly available for 2-3 decades.

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presidentender
The changes in technology since then have been dramatic. I can't imagine
anyone suggesting a falling-block rifle as a suitable assassin's tool today,
and poisoning an alcoholic with morphine seems like it would alert any coroner
immediately.

~~~
dfc
Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in 2006. I'm not sure why you are focused on
"alerting the coroner." The dead body is also a easy way to alert the coroner
that somebody's life was taken. The same can be said for a slit throat, giant
hole in skull, ligature marks, etc. I imagine that in most situations the goal
is a covert assassination not a clandestine assassination.

~~~
presidentender
Litvinenko's assassin used Polonium, which is an obvious and disfiguring
poison. The article mentions using morphine to poison a drunkard in order that
his death might be mistaken for the effects of habitual alcohol abuse. Aside
from causing the death of the target, those two methods have almost entirely
opposite goals.

~~~
wavefunction
Litvinenko had supposedly gone to work for the UK. The fact that he "got got"
in London was intended to be a big middle finger from the FSB to the UK, from
what I've read.

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paul_milligram
Reading about the "conference table technique" was a bit too specific and
caused me to promptly close the tab.

~~~
kaoD
CTRL+F didn't find it. Which one is it?

~~~
corford
At the very bottom of the document (complete with diagrams, no less).

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ableal
_" Poison was used unsuccessfully in the assassination of Rasputin and
Kolohan"_

Rasputin, most everybody knows about, but the second name is unfamiliar. I
suppose it is this WW2 episode: _" When an attempt to poison Holohan's soup
failed, a toss of a coin selected LoDolce to go to Holohan's room where
LoDolce shot him twice in the head."_, in
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holohan_Murder_Case](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holohan_Murder_Case)

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anigbrowl
Proof, if it were needed, that the past was not the golden age that people
sometimes make it out to be.

~~~
tome
You're right. I'd take living in the US now over living in the US during the
cold war, for any number of reasons.

In fact I'd guess any 20th decade was far worse than now on any number of
measures, with the possible exception of the 1900s and 1910s, which I don't
know much about, and the 1990s, which was great.

~~~
clarky07
the 10's was world war 1, so i think it's pretty easy to say that was worse.
the 20's were pretty good until the crash right at the end.

~~~
killerswan
Iff you were rich and white protestant.

My grandma remembered the Great Depression as a time when life improved.

~~~
tome
That's interesting. How did it improve for her?

~~~
igravious
Oftentimes the reason someone loses their shirt is cuz someone now got two two
shirts.

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pea
Hasan-Dan-Sabah's assassins were crazy: there was instances of them lying
undercover for literally decades before their kill.

Interesting the '53 date too for the CIA as they intervened in Persia against
Mossaddegh (but preferred to let angry local mobs do the assassinations rather
than this James Bond shit...)

~~~
ianstallings
This is a pamphlet they would likely hand out to said angry mobs beforehand.

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jevinskie
The illustrated "Conference Room Technique" at the bottom is almost straight
out of a movie! Two assassins kill 12 targets in less than 30 seconds.

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300bps
Great. I assume I'm on some sort of watch list now.

~~~
ISL
Along with the rest of HN. The signal to noise ratio for this page just
dropped.

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morley
Is there another source that confirms that this document is legitimate?

~~~
glurgh
Yes. These are part of the collection of the National Security Archive at GWU.
The summaries in the first link give some better context on what this actually
is (especially the one on Document 5, at the end)

[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/)

[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/index.html](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/index.html)

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ChrisAntaki
This is dark.

~~~
speedyrev
It's 60yrs later. Reality is darker, I'm sure.

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nwp90
I'm interested to see reference to a failed assassination attempt on
Churchill, using a pistol - I've not heard of this before, and can't
immediately find it referenced anywhere else. Anyone?

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swamp40
Should have read this thru a proxy...

