1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,600
Speaker 1: We saw the terrible events in America over the weekend,

2
00:00:02,720 --> 00:00:06,560
Speaker 1: the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate in Donald Trump,

3
00:00:06,920 --> 00:00:09,520
Speaker 1: and so lucky looking at some of the breakdown of

4
00:00:09,800 --> 00:00:12,160
Speaker 1: where the shot came from, and if he hadn't turned

5
00:00:12,160 --> 00:00:15,040
Speaker 1: his head at precisely that time, he would have been

6
00:00:15,080 --> 00:00:17,520
Speaker 1: struck in the head by the bullet as it was,

7
00:00:17,560 --> 00:00:23,079
Speaker 1: it clipped his ear as we saw. But in history, assassinations,

8
00:00:23,120 --> 00:00:25,920
Speaker 1: I suppose you go back, probably more due to Shakespeare

9
00:00:25,960 --> 00:00:31,400
Speaker 1: than anything else, to the assassination of Julius Caesar way

10
00:00:31,440 --> 00:00:36,080
Speaker 1: back when, and since then, sadly they have been a

11
00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:42,440
Speaker 1: hallmark of political life, Kings in England back in the day,

12
00:00:42,680 --> 00:00:46,839
Speaker 1: medieval days and before, killed in battle or killed by

13
00:00:47,120 --> 00:00:53,159
Speaker 1: potential rivals. Assassinations. Nevertheless, are they rarer today or not?

14
00:00:53,880 --> 00:01:00,520
Speaker 1: Because the last US presidential candidate to be targeted from

15
00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:04,440
Speaker 1: gered Ford. I suppose Gerald Ford, who was sitting president

16
00:01:04,480 --> 00:01:07,600
Speaker 1: but running for reelection. But the last candidate would have

17
00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:12,640
Speaker 1: been Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy shot in nineteen sixty eight, So

18
00:01:12,760 --> 00:01:17,520
Speaker 1: that's what fifty six years ago. A professor Matt Fitzpatrick,

19
00:01:17,560 --> 00:01:21,679
Speaker 1: professor of International History at Flinder's UNI, has examined all

20
00:01:21,720 --> 00:01:25,800
Speaker 1: of this, Matt, good morning, Good morning. So we do

21
00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:29,200
Speaker 1: go back a well, don't we did Julius Caesar, Yeah.

22
00:01:29,040 --> 00:01:31,000
Speaker 2: We certainly do. And he's just one of many that

23
00:01:31,080 --> 00:01:34,400
Speaker 2: were assassinated around that time. I mean, you know, there

24
00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:36,760
Speaker 2: was the Gracky Brothers and a whole bunch of people

25
00:01:36,880 --> 00:01:40,520
Speaker 2: or towards the end of the republic that died by

26
00:01:40,560 --> 00:01:41,680
Speaker 2: the hand of their rivals.

27
00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:45,160
Speaker 1: The emperors were famous for it, knocking each other off.

28
00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:47,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, very short time in the office for many

29
00:01:47,880 --> 00:01:48,160
Speaker 2: of those.

30
00:01:48,280 --> 00:01:52,400
Speaker 1: Yeah. All right, So more recent times and in democracies,

31
00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:53,720
Speaker 1: is it common or not?

32
00:01:54,840 --> 00:01:57,040
Speaker 2: It's reasonably common, And it's fair to say that wherever

33
00:01:57,080 --> 00:02:00,360
Speaker 2: you have politics, you from time to time end having

34
00:02:00,440 --> 00:02:04,720
Speaker 2: an assassination. Sadly enough, we've you know, we saw it,

35
00:02:04,760 --> 00:02:06,560
Speaker 2: as you said, you know, back in the in the

36
00:02:06,640 --> 00:02:10,680
Speaker 2: days of monarch, very famously Queen Victorious of seven attempts

37
00:02:10,720 --> 00:02:14,560
Speaker 2: on her life and her husband, Prince Albert, was also targeted.

38
00:02:14,919 --> 00:02:18,200
Speaker 2: All the Kaisers that those and of course Alexander the

39
00:02:18,240 --> 00:02:23,119
Speaker 2: second the Tzara Russia was famously assassinated. So and it

40
00:02:23,120 --> 00:02:24,680
Speaker 2: continues well into today, of course.

41
00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:28,359
Speaker 1: All right, are they relatively common? Well outside the US,

42
00:02:28,440 --> 00:02:30,360
Speaker 1: I mean this, see what happened on the weekend seems

43
00:02:30,400 --> 00:02:32,480
Speaker 1: to be a security lapse, you'd have to say, I

44
00:02:32,480 --> 00:02:35,400
Speaker 1: mean a building not that far away, just left to

45
00:02:35,440 --> 00:02:37,400
Speaker 1: its own devices, and for anyone to be on the

46
00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:41,480
Speaker 1: roof just as bizarre. But outside the US, in in democracy,

47
00:02:41,639 --> 00:02:44,320
Speaker 1: so Shinzo Arbi comes to mind most recently.

48
00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:47,639
Speaker 2: I guess yeah, that's right. Yes, he was assassinated by

49
00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:50,520
Speaker 2: somebody who was very unhappy with his links to a

50
00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:55,360
Speaker 2: particular church in Japan. But we've also got others so

51
00:02:55,800 --> 00:02:59,280
Speaker 2: perhaps less well known. So in Germany we had Vozza Lupke,

52
00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:02,160
Speaker 2: who was a He was a conservative politician, but he

53
00:03:02,240 --> 00:03:06,440
Speaker 2: was pro migrant and so he was assassinated by an

54
00:03:06,480 --> 00:03:09,840
Speaker 2: extremist far right group. And the same happened to the

55
00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:12,520
Speaker 2: British MP Joe Cox in twenty sixteen.

56
00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:17,840
Speaker 1: The Romanovs were already out. I'm leading into a question

57
00:03:17,960 --> 00:03:21,120
Speaker 1: to ask you does an assassination ever make a difference?

58
00:03:21,440 --> 00:03:23,799
Speaker 1: But the Romanovs, you think of them, they were already out,

59
00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:26,800
Speaker 1: so no difference there. The Kommos just didn't know what

60
00:03:26,840 --> 00:03:30,560
Speaker 1: to do with them or the Bolsheviks, so they were

61
00:03:30,680 --> 00:03:34,920
Speaker 1: bumped off. Do they make a difference assassinations.

62
00:03:35,480 --> 00:03:37,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean with the Romanovs, of course, I mean

63
00:03:37,880 --> 00:03:40,560
Speaker 2: the assassination of that whole family was an attempt to

64
00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:42,880
Speaker 2: say there is no going back, the same kind of

65
00:03:43,080 --> 00:03:46,680
Speaker 2: with you know, with the French Revolution, but in more

66
00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:49,840
Speaker 2: common times, more recent times, I'd say that some have

67
00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:52,640
Speaker 2: made a slight difference, but generally speaking they don't. One

68
00:03:52,680 --> 00:03:55,000
Speaker 2: perhaps it springs to mind, is the assassination of the

69
00:03:55,080 --> 00:03:58,880
Speaker 2: Israeli Prime Minister Jitsak Rabin that really set back down

70
00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:02,640
Speaker 2: peace in the Middle East or almost a generation sort of.

71
00:04:02,680 --> 00:04:07,280
Speaker 2: After he was assassinated, the sort of politics swung pretty

72
00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:10,080
Speaker 2: quickly and far to the right, and Benjamin Natania who

73
00:04:10,120 --> 00:04:12,080
Speaker 2: came to power and the peace process was more or

74
00:04:12,120 --> 00:04:14,960
Speaker 2: less sidelines. So that's an example of one that But

75
00:04:15,040 --> 00:04:16,800
Speaker 2: on the other hand, there are others around him that

76
00:04:17,560 --> 00:04:21,600
Speaker 2: that would have stepped into the breach. And I mean

77
00:04:21,640 --> 00:04:24,880
Speaker 2: take for example, I mean, heaven for fans that what

78
00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:28,240
Speaker 2: happened this week was successful. I mean you would have

79
00:04:28,240 --> 00:04:31,159
Speaker 2: had Rohndasantus or JD Vance step in. And that is

80
00:04:31,200 --> 00:04:34,080
Speaker 2: to say, the whole party shares the views of Trump.

81
00:04:34,640 --> 00:04:37,560
Speaker 2: So you can't really, you can't really killer an idea

82
00:04:37,720 --> 00:04:40,360
Speaker 2: or a movement that simply. I think it's a bit

83
00:04:40,360 --> 00:04:41,280
Speaker 2: more complex than that.

84
00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:45,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, so where to here? I suppose in

85
00:04:45,560 --> 00:04:48,400
Speaker 1: the US they've just got to regroup and move forward

86
00:04:48,400 --> 00:04:48,880
Speaker 1: as a nation.

87
00:04:50,120 --> 00:04:54,880
Speaker 2: Yes, I think so. Obviously, there's been some really fervent

88
00:04:54,960 --> 00:04:57,920
Speaker 2: talk about the security and how to best beef that up,

89
00:04:57,920 --> 00:05:00,320
Speaker 2: and I think, you know, there'll be some rish uffling

90
00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:03,280
Speaker 2: of the security services there. But apart from that, I

91
00:05:03,360 --> 00:05:05,719
Speaker 2: think they have to sort of I mean, I think

92
00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:08,120
Speaker 2: as Biden and others said that what you have to

93
00:05:08,160 --> 00:05:11,440
Speaker 2: do is is take down the tone, but still sort

94
00:05:11,480 --> 00:05:15,400
Speaker 2: of make sure that the political competition is able to

95
00:05:15,440 --> 00:05:19,200
Speaker 2: continue without the threat of kind of lethal violence over candidates.

96
00:05:19,400 --> 00:05:22,440
Speaker 1: Yeah. Have we seen much of this in Australia. People

97
00:05:22,480 --> 00:05:25,840
Speaker 1: have been texting into talking about Percy Brookfield who was

98
00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:29,120
Speaker 1: shot dead at the Riverton railway station. But he wasn't targeted.

99
00:05:29,160 --> 00:05:32,719
Speaker 1: He happened to be nearby and tried to disarm the

100
00:05:32,760 --> 00:05:35,200
Speaker 1: gunman when the bullet when the shot went off and

101
00:05:35,240 --> 00:05:38,080
Speaker 1: the bullet lodged in his stomach and he died not

102
00:05:38,200 --> 00:05:41,200
Speaker 1: long after that. But not targeted as such.

103
00:05:41,480 --> 00:05:44,800
Speaker 2: No, not so much. I mean, there's the I'm thinking

104
00:05:44,839 --> 00:05:47,640
Speaker 2: back now, perhaps the Hilton bombing in the late nineteen

105
00:05:47,640 --> 00:05:50,720
Speaker 2: seventies was perhaps the one of the last attempts to

106
00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:56,080
Speaker 2: sort of target someone specifically. It tends to be certainly

107
00:05:56,160 --> 00:05:59,640
Speaker 2: Australia has been sort of less affected by this than

108
00:05:59,680 --> 00:06:03,119
Speaker 2: other themocracies, and you know, long may that be the case?

109
00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:06,560
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I recalled John Newman and New South Wales state

110
00:06:06,680 --> 00:06:10,760
Speaker 1: MP was shot dead in a target at ambush outside

111
00:06:10,760 --> 00:06:12,880
Speaker 1: his home by a political rifle.

112
00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:15,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there was of course the I mean, it

113
00:06:15,240 --> 00:06:17,440
Speaker 2: wasn't an attempt on his life, thankfully enough. But when

114
00:06:17,520 --> 00:06:20,640
Speaker 2: King Charles was rushed on today by a student that

115
00:06:21,160 --> 00:06:23,080
Speaker 2: had all the hallmarks of somebody who looked like it

116
00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:25,680
Speaker 2: was about to be an as fascination but in the

117
00:06:25,760 --> 00:06:27,760
Speaker 2: end up being a protest instead.

118
00:06:28,040 --> 00:06:30,720
Speaker 1: Wasn't Arthur Corwell shot at in the Lanning sixties here

119
00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:33,080
Speaker 1: in Australia, former opposition leader or.

120
00:06:33,040 --> 00:06:35,479
Speaker 2: You're testing you're testing my memory there, but I think

121
00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:36,240
Speaker 2: you might be right.

122
00:06:38,120 --> 00:06:41,359
Speaker 1: So there's there's certainly been a number, but as you say, thankfully,

123
00:06:41,560 --> 00:06:46,000
Speaker 1: and not too many, and let's hope it stays that way. Absolutely, Matt,

124
00:06:46,040 --> 00:06:46,920
Speaker 1: appreciate your time.

125
00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:48,440
Speaker 2: Thank you very welcome.

126
00:06:48,640 --> 00:06:52,880
Speaker 1: Professor Matt Fitzpatrick professor of international history at Flinders UNI,