The President's Kill List - (Intelligence, Surveillance and Secret Warfare) by Luca Trenta

About the Book

Investigates the US government's involvement in the assassination of foreign officials from the early Cold War to the present day.

Book Synopsis

From Fidel Castro to Qassem Soleimani, the US government has been involved in an array of assassinations and assassination attempts against foreign leaders and officials. The President's Kill List reveals how the US government has relied on a variety of methods, from the use of poison to the delivery of sniper rifles, and from employing hitmen to simply laying the groundwork for local actors to do the deed themselves. It shows not only how policymakers decided on assassination but also the level of Presidential control over these decisions. Tracing the history of the US government's approach to assassination, the book analyses the evolution of assassination policies and, for the first time, reveals how successive administrations - through private justifications and public legitimations - ensured assassination remained an available tool.

Review Quotes

The book's outstanding documentary evidence base and its sophisticated judgements make it an excellent resource for scholars and students. Trenta takes a topic that often attracts caricature and conspiracy outside academia and conveys the complexity of policy-making and implementation. The book is a model of critical scholarship that is ideal for teaching about the unexceptional side of American foreign policy.--Maria Ryan, University of Nottingham "International Affairs"

This is a well-researched, timely, and valuable study of the United States' use of assassination as a tool of foreign policy.--L. M. Lees, emerita, Old Dominion University "CHOICE"

Combining forensic research with nuanced, sophisticated judgment, Luca Trenta has produced the definitive account of arguably the most controversial issue in modern US foreign relations, one that will be welcomed by scholars and general readers alike.

--Hugh Wilford, California State University, Long Beach

This breathtaking study of a controversial aspect of United States relations to the global south traces the rise, fall, and rise of assassination of foreign leaders. At the centre of the story is the 1970s ban on the technique as an obstacle circumvented with help from legal rationalization. Careful and scholarly, Trenta's book is a model of devastating and enlightening inquiry.

--Samuel Moyn, author of Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War

This is a fascinating, well-written, and deeply researched book on murder as a method of U.S. foreign policy since 1945. Examining cases from Patrice Lumumba of the Congo in the early Cold War to Qassem Soleimani of Iran in recent years, Professor Trenta is fair-minded and thoughtful in his analysis of this extreme - and misguided - form of covert action occasionally adopted in America's approach to world affairs.

--Loch Johnson, University of Georgia

About the Author

Luca Trenta is Associate Professor in International Relations at Swansea University.