below is my top 10 list of failed
assassination attempts that, had they
succeeded, would have had tremendous
repercussions to this day.
(Note: I’m only including actual attempts
here, not plots that were stopped before
they had a chance to be carried out.)


10. Charles De Gaulle
President of France, 1962 (re-
enactment in video starting 4:50)
While the controversial French President
and World War Two leader of the Free
French had several close calls with
assassins throughout his long political
career, none came as close to success as
that of August, 1962. Riding in his car
down the Avenue de la Liberation, De
Gaulle’s vehicle was suddenly sprayed
with machine gun fire as it sped through
the streets of Paris at 70 miles per hour.
(The attack was carried out by a
maverick French Air Force officer
infuriated with DeGaulle’s decision to
grant Algeria its independence.)
Though the attack killed two policemen,
shattered the rear window of his Citroen,
and took all out all four tires, his driver
managed to get away with the President
and his wife unharmed. Had he not, it’s
interesting to consider what direction
France might have gone without the
larger-than-life De Gaulle at the helm for
the next seven years.

9. Gamal Nasser
President of Egypt, 1954
Most people outside the Arab world have
probably never heard of Gamal Nasser,
but for almost two decades he was the
driving force behind Arab nationalism in
the region and the impetus behind the
country’s many wars with Israel. As such,
had he been hit by even one of the eight
bullets fired at him while he was
delivering a live radio speech in October
of 1954, it’s unlikely the Arab/Israeli wars
of 1956 or 1967 would have happened,
nor would the deadliest of all Arab-Israeli
Wars, the Yom Kippur conflict of October,
1973, have occurred. (Though this last
war was engineered by his successor,
Anwar Sadat—Nassar having died of a
heart attack three years earlier—it was
in direct response to the humiliation the
Egyptians suffered at the hands of Israel
six years earlier.)
Of course, it’s entirely possible one of his
many lieutenants would have stepped
into his shoes upon his death, but none
of them appeared to possess Nasser’s
charisma or bellicose tendencies, making
the future direction Egypt might’ve
taken less certain. It’s possible it would
have been less confrontational; but, of
course, there’s no way of knowing.


8. Andrew Jackson
President of the United States,
1835
While most people imagine Lincoln’s
assassination to have been the first
attempt on a sitting American
president’s life, few realize how close
one of his predecessors came from being
the first to die at the hands of a gunman.
It happened late in Jackson’s first term
when a crazed man walked up to the
president as he walked out of the Capitol
building’s east portico and aimed two
percussion pistols at “Old Hickory.”
Remarkably, both pistols misfired,
leaving Jackson unharmed but his
attacker bloodied and bruised after a
thorough thrashing by the burly
commander-in-chief, who apparently was
as adept at wielding his cane as he was a
musket. The man was unceremoniously
hauled away by authorities (including a
former congressman named Davy
Crockett) and, after being deemed
insane by doctors, was left to rot in an
asylum for the rest of his life. Had the
two shots, fired at point blank range,
succeeded, the impact on the political
direction the country was heading under
Jackson’s heavy handed federalism
would have been dramatic. Whether it
would have been better or worse for the
country is debatable but that it would
have been different is not.


7. Ronald Reagan
President of the United States,
1981
It’s interesting to imagine what the
eighties would have looked like had one
of John Hinkley’s hastily fired bullets
found its mark and Reagan’s more
moderate Vice-President George H.W.
Bush become president eight years
earlier than he eventually did. Would he
have been able to rejuvenate the
economy, as Reagonomics did in the
mid-eighties, or rally the people to bring
pressure on the Soviet Union? While
much of Reagan’s agenda would
probably still have made it through, it’s
difficult imagining the more moderate
Bush persuading the populace with the
elegance of the “Great Communicator”
or demanding that Gorbachev dismantle
the Berlin Wall. Still, he did navigate the
country through the collapse of the
Soviet Union and two wars during his
single term, so it’s entirely possible he
would have been up to the task eight
years earlier. Fortunately, modern
medicine and Reagan’s hearty
constitution ensured that the world
would never find out what the eighties
might’ve looked like without the
“Gipper” at the helm.


6. Benito Mussolini
Fascist Leader of Italy, 1926
It appears that 1926 was not a good year
for il Duce, who was to face—and survive
—no fewer than four separate attempts
on his life over the span of just seven
months. (On the other hand, since none
of the attempts succeeded, it may have
been a very good year for him, if a very
bad one for Italy.) The first attempt was
made by an Irish woman who very nearly
shot off his nose, while three others—all
men—either missed their mark or were
caught in the planning stages. In every
case, they ended up deader than their
intended target. Had any of them proven
a little more steady on the trigger,
however, the Fascists would have not
only lost the driving force behind their
movement, but quite possibly even their
tenuous hold on power. Who—or what—
would have replaced him? Another
fascist who might have proven even
more capable than il Duce himself? A
reinvigorated monarchy? A pseudo-
democratic republic? It’s anyone’s guess

.5. Franklin Roosevelt
President-Elect of the United
States, 1933
It’s hard to imagine weathering the twin
storms presented by the Great
Depression and World War Two without
Roosevelt at the helm, but that almost
was the case. It (almost) happened in
February of 1933 when the then
president-elect was riding in an open car
in Miami, Florida. A crazed Italian
immigrant named Giuseppe Zangara
fired five shots at him, missing him but
managing to hit and kill the mayor of
Chicago, Anton Cermak (who had been
riding in the car with Roosevelt). Had
Zangara succeeded, Vice-President John
Garner would have been sworn in as the
32nd President and the thirties could
well have been very different. Better?
Worse? There’s no way of knowing what
kind of president Garner would have
made, but it’s hard to see how the more
diminutive Garner would have gotten
the New Deal, Social Security, or Lend-
Lease through a hostile congress.


4. Abraham Lincoln
U.S. President, 1864
Lincoln’s assassination at the hands of
actor turned southern agitator John
Wilkes Booth in 1865 was the stuff of
legend as well as an unmitigated
disaster for the South, Yet, imagine if an
earlier attempt in August of 1864 had
succeeded. While not generally known to
most people, someone took a shot at the
president while he was riding in his
carriage around Washington, missing his
head by inches (and putting a hole in his
trademark top hat). Had their aim been
just a little better, the Great
Emancipator would have been
succeeded by Hannibal Hamlin (who?)
which may have well given the
upcoming election to Lincoln’s overly
cautious former commander, General
George McClellan. How either Hamlin
(had he won reelection) or McClellan
would have prosecuted the last year of
the war—much less dealt with southern
reconstruction—is a source for some
debate. Lincoln’s death, if combined with
a lame-duck Hamlin and a conciliatory
McClellan, might have encouraged the
South to hold on just a while longer and
resulted in an armistice rather than a
victory, dramatically changing the
history of America.


3. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Russian Revolutionary and Founder
of the USSR, 1918
Shortly before he became the
undisputed leader of the Soviet Union,
Lenin was nearly done in by a female
assassin and fellow communist named
Fanya Kaplin, who got off three shots at
the man just as he was about to step
into his car. Though seriously injured (he
was hit in the arm and jaw), he
recovered and used the attempt on his
life to both bolster his popularity as well
as instigate a reign of terror against his
opponents.
But what would’ve happened if Fanya’s
aim had been better? Would the
Communists have prevailed against the
Mensheviks or defeated the royalist
White Army without their philosophical
and political leader? Certainly the future
would have been much more up for
grabs without Lenin in charge, though
it’s difficult to tell how it could have
been much worse for the Russian
people. It’s at least a safe bet that Stalin
—the man who would eventually
succeed Lenin and turn Russia into one
giant gulag—was in no position to take
power at that point, making it difficult to
know who might’ve finally seized the
reins of power. This makes this one of
those failed attempts that’s difficult to
assess whether its success would have
been beneficial for Russia or detrimental;
in either case, it certainly would have
been different.


2. Wilhelm II
German Kaiser, 1901 (video is
footage of Wilhelm II and son, not
actual assassination attempt)
When an anarchist took a shot at the
Kaiser while the king was visiting
Bremen, Germany in March of 1901—
only mildly injuring the man—few
realized just how costly that miss would
prove to be. How so? Had the shot found
its mark, it’s possible World War One
never would have happened and the
course of history—especially in Europe—
would have been dramatically altered. Of
course, one can’t put all the blame for
Europe’s descent into madness in 1914
on the bellicose Wilhelm II, but it’s
entirely possible that a more practical
and cool-headed leader might have been
able to keep events from spiraling out of
control as quickly and completely as
they did. Would that man have been the
Kaiser’s son, Wilhelm III? Probably. The
only question then would be whether the
boy king (he would have been just 19
years old when he succeeded his father
in 1901) would have been the man to
change history thirteen years later or
would he have gone down the same
tragic path his father took? We will never
know.



1. Adolf Hitler
Leader of Germany, 1944
The details of just how close a band of
conspirators headed up by a disfigured
Army Colonel named Claus von
Stauffenberg came to killing Hitler in his
Prussian hideout in July of 1944 is the
stuff of legend (and has even been
made into a recent movie starring Tom
Cruise). But, consider what it would have
meant to the war in Europe had it
succeeded. Clearly the conspirators
would’ve had the upper hand and, with
the help of key anti-Nazi elements within
the Army—who saw the war as a lost
cause at that point—might well have
succeeded in ousting the Nazis and
negotiating a quick surrender to the
allies, shortening the war by ten months
and saving millions of lives in the
process. With Germany entirely
unoccupied by foreign invaders at that
point, it would not only have greatly
reduced the level of death and
destruction that was to be seen over the
next few months, but would have
undoubtedly altered the political
landscape of Europe and likely changed
the complexion of the looming Cold War,
probably in the ally’s favor. As it was, the
bomb that was planted under Hitler’s
briefing table was a little too far away
from der Fuhrer when it went off,
dooming Germany in the process.




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