Press

Press (pronounced pres)

(1) To act upon with steadily applied weight or force.

(2) To move by weight or force in a certain direction or into a certain position.

(3) To compress or squeeze, as to alter in shape or size.

(4) To hold closely, as in an embrace; clasp.

(5) To flatten or make smooth, especially by ironing.

(6) To extract juice, sugar, etc from by pressure.

(7) To manufacture (phonograph records, videodiscs, or the like), especially by stamping from a mold or matrix.

(8) To exert weight, force, or pressure.

(9) In weightlifting, to raise or lift, especially a specified amount of weight, in a press.

(10) To iron clothing, curtains, etc.

(11) To bear heavily, as upon the mind.

(12) To compel in another, haste, a change of opinion etc.

(13) Printed publications, especially newspapers and periodicals.  Collectively, all the media and agencies that print, broadcast, or gather and transmit news, including newspapers, newsmagazines, radio and television news bureaus, and wire services.

(14) The editorial employees, taken collectively, of these media and agencies.

(15) To force into military service.

1175-1225: From the Middle English press & presse (throng, trouble, machine for pressing) from the Old French, from presser (to press) from the Latin pressāre, frequentative of premere (past participle pressus).  In Medieval Latin it became pressa (noun use of the feminine of pressus).  The noun press (a crowd, throng, company; crowding and jostling of a throng; a massing together) emerged in the late twelfth century and was from the eleventh century Old French presse (a throng, a crush, a crowd; wine or cheese press), from the Latin pressare.  Although in the Late Old English press existed in the sense of "clothes press", etymologists believe the Middle English word is probably from French.  The general sense of an "instrument or machine by which anything is subjected to pressure" dates from the late fourteenth century and was first used to describe a "device for pressing cloth" before being extended to "devices which squeeze juice from grapes, oil from olives, cider from apples etc".  The sense of "urgency; urgent demands of affairs" emerged in the 1640s.  It subsequently proved adaptable as a technical term in sports, adopted by weightlifting in 1908 while the so-called (full-court press) defense in basketball was first recorded in 1959.  Press is a noun & verb, pressingness is a noun, pressing is a noun, verb & adjective, pressed is a verb & adjective and pressingly is an adverb; the noun plural is presses.  The now archaic verb prest was a simple past and past participle of press.

Fleet Street's last "hot-metal" press, now a permanent exhibit at National Science Museum's Science and Innovation Park, Wroughton, England.

Installed originally in the 1930s to print the Daily Mail and Evening Standard, the apparatus is some 9 metres (29½ feet) high and 9½ metres (31 feet) long, weighing 140 tonnes (154 short tons).  Given the bulk, the museum's management have good reason to make this exhibit permanent.  Although considerably more intricate than the printing presses of 500 years earlier, the operators of those would still have recognized and understood the processes and mechanisms.

The specific sense "machine for printing" was from the 1530s, extended by the 1570s to publishing houses and to publishing generally (in phrases like freedom of the press) from circa 1680 although meaning gradually shifted in early 1800s to "periodical publishing; journalism".  Newspapers collectively came to be spoken of as "the press" simply because they were printed on printing presses and the use to mean "journalists collectively" is attested from 1921 but this has faded from use with the decline in print and the preferred reference has long been “the news media”, Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) helpfully distinguishing between the news media (those agreeing with him) and the fake new media (those not).  The first gathering called a press conference is attested from 1931, though the thing itself had been around for centuries (and in some sense formalized during World War I (1914-1918)) although a politician appears first to have appointed a “press secretary” as late as 1940; prior to that there was some reluctance among politicians to admit they had people on the payroll to "manage the press" but the role long pre-dates 1940.  The term “press release” (an official statement offered to a newspaper and authorized for publication) is from 1918 although the practice was of long-standing.  The sense "force into military (especially naval) service" emerged (most famously in the “press-gang” (a detachment under command of an officer empowered to press men into public service)) in the 1570s, an alteration (by association with the verb press) of the mid-fourteenth century prest (engage by loan, pay in advance (especially in reference to money paid to a soldier or sailor on enlisting), from the Latin praestare (to stand out, stand before; fulfill, perform, provide), the construct being prae- (before) + stare (to stand), from the primitive Indo-European root sta- (to stand, make or be firm).  The verb was related to praesto (ready, available).  The concept of "press ganging" to obtain men for military service is ancient but in the codified way it was done by the Royal Navy it remains the Admiralty's greatest contribution to HRM (human resource management).  

Rupert Murdoch (b 1931), Fleet Street, London, 1969.

Mr Murdoch is pictured with one of the first copies of the new The Sun newspaper, “hot off the press”, the print-run in November 1969 the first since his acquisition of the title.  Ownership of the The Sun proved handy because, after being compelled to close the long-running News of the World in the wake of the "phone hacking scandal", in 2012 Mr Murdoch created a Sunday edition of The Sun, meaning he needed to maintain only one 7-day tabloid rather than two (and the two titles were more similar than they were different); once again, following a crisis, things worked out rather well for Mr Murdoch.  It was Mr Murdoch who added the topless “Page 3 girls” to the Sun, prompting one media analyst to conclude: “Well, Rupert Murdoch has found a gap in the market, the oldest gap in the world”.

In 1969, the phrase “hot off the press” was literal because the old “hot type” presses used the heat in the hand-assembled metal plates to complete the chemical process by which ink end up on paper.  Prepared even to sustain loss-making mastheads if he thinks their continued existence fulfils some useful purpose (such as “influence” or “agenda-setting”), Mr Murdoch clearly retains some residual affection for the print titles on which he built his empire(s) but the old expression “printer's ink in his veins” now is nuanced because although his papers still consume much ink and paper, more than anyone he was responsible for the demise of the old “hot type” printing presses which had evolved over centuries.  Modern newspapers still are printed with a form of ink but, mostly using a process called web offset printing (a variant of offset lithography, optimized for speed and high throughput), that "ink" is so low in viscosity it’s better imagined as a paste.  Usually petroleum or soy-based, the substance is transferred from a metal plate to a rubber "blanket" and, as the newsprint (porous paper in continuous rolls) moves through the press, the ink is applied to the paper as shapes, text and images.  The ink’s chemistry is formulated to ensure absorption into newsprint is close to instantaneous; in this the mix differs from traditional inks which could take seconds or even minutes to dry to the point printed paper could be handled without smudging, drying now achieved almost wholly by absorption and evaporation, not heat-fusing.  To gain speed, there was a trade-off in quality in that being relatively thin, the ink produces less color saturation than is achieved by what’s used for glossy magazines (which is why newspaper images look softer or slightly grayish).  That is of course acceptable because newspapers have a short life, an idea encapsulated by the band the Rolling Stones that in 1967 sang “Who wants yesterday’s papers. Nobody in the world.” although the meaning of that track was better summed up in the line: “Who wants yesterdays girl.”

Cover girl Sydney Sweeney (b 1997) amply filling the cover of Cosmopolitan's “Love Edition”, January 2026; content providers like Ms Sweeny will help ensure the survival of at least some print titles.  A tablet computer and a printed glossy are just two different technologies and whether a magazine like Cosmopolitan or a newspaper like The Economist, reading the physical copy tends to be more pleasing, tactile experience.

However, just as Mr Murdoch was in the 1980s instrumental in consigning the old printing presses to the scrapheap (along with a substantial number of the unionized workforce previously employed to maintain and run them), he’s also seen technological advances impose not always welcome changes on his business model, some of the implications of which he discussed in 2006: “To find something comparable, you have to go back 500 years to the printing press, the birth of mass media – which, incidentally, is what really destroyed the old world of kings and aristocracies. Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people who are taking control.”  He may have been too pessimistic because, in the 2020s, watching Mr Murdoch’s Fox News, it’s not immediately obvious the people have “taken control” and a more glum analysis suggests the elites merely have done what elites always have sought to do as conditions shift: keep the strategy, adjust the tactics.  Still, although printed newspapers no longer need to exist, nostalgic types who enjoy the ritualism of reading one spread on a table while taking a coffee (and maybe even a cigarette) will miss them when they’re gone so they at least will wish Mr Murdoch many more years of rude good health because whether the print titles will survive his (God forbid) death isn’t certain.  Despite that uncertainty, most analysts seem to believe print in its (possibly diminishing) niches will likely endure.  Some of the glossies continue to flourish and encouragingly, the pleasingly quirky automotive site Petrolicious (revived after being acquired by the duPont Registry Group in 2024) has brought back its printed, tabloid size monthly Petrolicious Post (US$9.00 cover price, US$108.00 annual subscription), the internet lowering the costs associated with such projects by permitting direct-to-customer distribution without the need to supply newsstands.

Most meanings related to pushing and exerting pressure had formed by the mid-fourteenth century and this had been extended to mean "to urge or argue for" by the 1590s.  The early fourteenth century pressen (to clasp, hold in embrace) extended in meaning by the mid century also to mean "to squeeze out" & "to cluster, gather in a crowd" and by the late 1300s, "to exert weight or force against, exert pressure" (and also "assault, assail" & "forge ahead, push one's way, move forward", again from the thirteenth century Old French presser (squeeze, press upon; torture)", from the Latin pressare (to press (the frequentative formation from pressus, past participle of premere (to press, hold fast, cover, crowd, compress), from the primitive Indo-European root per- (to strike)).  The sense of "to reduce to a particular shape or form by pressure" dates from the early fifteenth century while the figurative (“to attack”) use was recorded some decades earlier.  The meaning "to urge; beseech, argue for" dates from the 1590s.

The letter-press referred to matter printed from relief surfaces and was a term first used in the 1840s (the earlier (1771) description had been "text," as opposed to copper-plate illustration).  The noun pressman has occasionally been used to refer to newspaper journalists but in the 1590s it described "one who operates or has charge of a printing press" and was adopted after the 1610s to refer to "one employed in a wine-press".  A similar sharing of meaning attached to the pressroom which in the 1680s meant "a room where printing presses are worked" and by 1902 it was also a "room (in a courthouse, etc.) reserved for the use of reporters".  To press the flesh (shake hands) came into use in 1926 and a neglected use of “pressing” is as a form of torture.  Under a wide variety of names, pressing was a popular method of torture or execution for over four-thousand years; mostly using rocks and stones but elephants tended to be preferred in South and South-East Asia.  It’s a medieval myth that Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England 1509-1547) invented pressing but he certainly adopted it as a method of torture with his usual enthusiasm for such things.  Across the channel, under the French civil code, Peine forte et dure (forceful and hard punishment) defined pressing.  Used when a defendant refused to plead, the victim would be subjected to having heavier and heavier stones placed upon his or her chest until a plea was entered, or as the weight of the stones on the chest became too great for the subject to breathe, fatal suffocation would occur.

Pressed for time: Giles Corey's Punishment and Awful Death (1692), a drawing held by the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington DC.  Watched by a presumably approving crowd, the technique was to place stones upon the board covering the unfortunate soul: The “straw which broke the camel’s back” principle.

Remembered as a method use for torture and to extract confessions, the technique of pressing was known often as “crushing” if used in executions or the unfortunate victim of a pressing were to die.  Giles Corey was a farmer of 81 who lived in south-west Salem village, Massachusetts who had been accused of witchcraft, then a fashionable charge in Salem (despite the perception, it wasn't only women who were arraigned as witches).  He chose not to enter a plea and simply remained mute in court, prompting the judges to order the coercive measure peine forte et dure, an ancient legal device dating from thirteenth century Anglo-Norman law and which translated literally as “a long and hard punishment”; it was used to persuade those who refused to engage in process to change their mind (ie forcing an accused to enter a plea).  In the First Statute of Westminster (3 Edward I. c. 12; 1275) it stated (in Sir Edward Coke’s (1552–1634) later translation):  “That notorious Felons, which openly be of evil name, and will not put themselves in Enquests of Felonies that Men shall charge them with before the Justices at the King’s suit, shall have strong and hard Imprisonment (prisone forte et dure), as they which refuse to stand to the common Law of the Land.”

Prisone forte et dure came into use because of the principle in English law that a court required the accused voluntarily to seek its jurisdiction over a matter before it could hear the case, the accused held to have expressed this request by entering a plea.  Should an accused refuse to enter a plea, the court could not hear the case which, constructively, was an obvious abuse of process in the administration of justice so the work-around was to impose a “coercive means”.  The First Statute of Westminster however refers to prisone forte et dure (a strong and hard imprisonment) and it does seem the original intent was to subject the recalcitrant to imprisonment under especially harsh conditions (bread & water and worse) but at some point in the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries there seems to have been a bit of mission creep and the authorities were interpreting things to permit pressing.  The earliest known document confirming a death is dated 1406 but it’s clear that by then pressing was not novel with the court acknowledging that if the coercive effect was not achieved, the accused certainly would die.  One who might have been pleased the law had moved on from torturing defendants who declined to enter a plea was Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi Deputy Führer 1933-1941).  Appearing before the IMT (International Military Tribunal) in the first Nuremberg Trial which heard the cases against two dozen of the surviving leading Nazis, those in the dock all pleaded "not guilty" except Hess who stood at the microphone, said "nein" (no) and walked back to his place.  Dryly, the IMT's president responded:  "That will be recorded as a plea of 'not guilty'".  There was laughter in the court.  

Pressed Duck

Caneton à la presse, Aus$190 (US$122) at Philippe Restaurant (Melbourne).

Pressed duck (In the French the dish described variously as canard à la presse, caneton à la presse, canard à la rouennaise, caneton à la rouennaise or canard au sang) is one of the set-pieces of traditional French cuisine and the rarity with which it's now served is accounted for not by its complexity but the time-consuming and labor-intensive steps in its preparation.  Regarded as a specialty of Rouen, the creation was attributed to an innkeeper from the city of Duclair.  Expensive and now really more of a set-piece event than a meal, pressed duck in the twenty-first century rarely appears on menus and is often subject to conditions such as being ordered up to 48 hours in advance or accompanied with the pre-payment of at least a deposit.  Inevitably too there will be limits on the number available because a restaurant will have only so many physical duck presses and if that’s just one, then it’s one pressed duck per sitting and, given what’s involved, that means one per evening.  Some high-end a la carte restaurants do still have it on the menu including La Tour d'Argent in Paris, Philippe Restaurant in Melbourne, Ottos in London, À L'aise in Oslo, The Charles in Sydney (a version with dry-aged Maremma duck) and Pasjoli in Los Angeles lists caneton à la presse as its signature dish.

Pressed duck sequence of events: The duck press (left), pressing the duck (centre) & pressed duck (right).

Instructions

(1) Select a young, plump duck.

(2) Wringing the neck, quickly asphyxiate duck, ensuring all blood is retained.

(3) Partially roast duck.

(4) Remove liver; grind and season liver.

(5) Remove breast and legs.

(6) Take remaining carcass (including other meat, bones, and skin) and place in duck-press.

(7) Apply pressure in press to extract and collect blood and other juices from carcass.

(8) Take extracted blood, thicken and flavor with the duck's liver, butter, and Cognac.  Combine with the breast to finish cooking.  Other ingredients that may be added to the sauce include foie gras, port wine, Madeira wine, and lemon.

(9) Slice the breast and serve with sauce as a first serving; the legs are broiled and served as the next course.

Silverplate Duck Press (Item# 31-9128) offered at M.S. Rau Antiques (Since 1912) in New Orleans at US$16,850.

According to culinary legend, the mechanism of the screw-type appliance was perfected in the late nineteenth century by chefs at the Tour d'Argent restaurant in Paris, the dish then called canard au sang (literally “duck in its blood”), a description which was accurate but presumably “pressed duck” was thought to have a wider appeal.  The example pictured is untypically ornate with exquisite foliate scrollwork and delicate honeycomb embossing on the base.  Although associated with the famous dish, outside of the serving period, chefs used duck presses for other purposes where pressing was required including the preparation of stocks or confits (various foods that have been immersed in a substance for both flavor and preservation).

Pressed duck got a mention in a gushing puff-piece extolling the virtues of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) which, in the pre-war years, was a remarkably fertile field of journalistic endeavour on both sides of the Atlantic.  William George Fitz-Gerald (circa 1970-1942) was a prolific Irish journalist who wrote under the pseudonym Ignatius Phayre and the English periodical Country Life published his account of a visit to the Berchtesgaden retreat on the invitation of his “personal friend” Adolf Hitler.  That claim was plausible because although when younger Fitz-Gerald’s writings had shown some liberal instincts, by the “difficult decade” of the 1930s, experience seems to have persuaded him the world's problems were caused by democracy and the solution was an authoritarian system, headed by what he called “the long looked for leader.”  Clearly taken by his contributor’s stance, in introducing the story, Country Life’s editor called Hitler “one of the most extraordinary geniuses of the century” and noted “the Führer is fond of painting in water-colours and is a devotee of Mozart.”

Country Life, March 1936 (both Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945)   (1893–1946) and Werner von Blomberg (1878–1946; Reichsminister of War 1935-1938) (1878–1946) were then generals and not field marshals, von Blomberg raised to the rank in April 1936, Göring in February 1938).  Göring wearing the traditional southern German Lederhosen (leather pants) must have been a sight worth seeing.

Substantially, the piece in Country Life also appeared in the journal Current History with the title: Holiday with Hitler: A Personal Friend Tells of a Personal Visit with Der Führer — with a Minimum of Personal Bias”.  In hindsight it may seem a challenge for a journalist, two years on from the regime’s well-publicized murders of a least dozens of political opponents (and some unfortunate bystanders who would now be classed as “collateral damage”) in the pre-emptive strike against the so-called “Röhm putsch”, to keep bias about the Nazis to a minimum although many in his profession did exactly that, some notoriously.  It’s doubtful Fitz-Gerald visited the Obersalzberg when claimed or that he ever met Hitler because his story is littered with minor technical errors and absurdities such as Der Führer personally welcoming him upon touching down at Berchtesgaden’s (non-existent) aerodrome or the loveliness of the cherry orchid (not a species to survive in alpine regions).  Historians have concluded the piece was assembled with a mix of plagiarism and imagination, a combination increasingly familiar since the internet encouraged its proliferation.  Still, with the author assuring his readers Hitler was really more like the English country gentlemen with which they were familiar than the frightening and ranting “messianic” figure he was so often portrayed, it’s doubtful the Germans ever considered complaining about the odd deviation from the facts and just welcomed the favourable publicity.

So, those who complain about the early implementations of consumer generative AI (artificial intelligence) products "making stuff up" to "fill in the gaps" can be assured it's something with a long (if not noble) tradition among flesh & blood content providers whether they be Nazi Ministers for Propaganda & Enlightenment or working journalists hustling for a dollar.  Generative AI is likely for some time to remain in its "early implementation" phase so should be used with much the same approach as that taken by the inspection teams of the US & USSR when auditing the outcomes of various SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) agreements: "trust but verify".  As a working journalist, Fitz-Gerald became used to editing details so he could sell essentially the same piece to several different publications, cutting & pasting as required, Current History’s subscribers spared the lengthy descriptions of the Berghof’s carpets, curtains and furniture enjoyed by Country Life’s readers who were also able to learn of the food served at der Tabellenführer, the Truite saumonée à la Monseigneur Selle (salmon trout Monseigneur style) and caneton à la presse (pressed duck) both praised although in all the many accounts of life of the court circle’s life on the Obersalzberg, there no mention of the vegetarian Hitler ever having such things on the menu.

Indeed, in Erinnerungen (Memories or Reminiscences) and published in English as Inside the Third Reich (1969), Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) recalled that belying the impression of excess created by the regime’s gaudy spectacles and monumentalist architecture, there was little extravagance at Hitler’s table, fresh vegetables his single gastronomic indulgence.  Describing things, Speer wrote: “The food was emphatically simple.  A soup, no appetizer, meat with vegetables and potatoes, a sweet.  For beverage we had a choice between mineral water, ordinary Berlin bottled beer, or a cheap wine.  Hitler was served his vegetarian food, drank Fachinger mineral water, and those of his guests who wished could imitate him.  But few did.  It was Hitler himself who insisted on this simplicity.  He could count on its being talked about in Germany.  Once, when the Helgoland fishermen presented him with a gigantic lobster, this delicacy was served at table, much to the satisfaction of the guests, but Hitler made disapproving remarks about the human error of consuming such ugly monstrosities. Moreover, he wanted to have such luxuries forbidden, he declared.  Göring seldom came to these meals.  Once, when I left him to go to dinner at the Chancellery, he remarked: ‘To tell the truth, the food there is too rotten for my taste.  And then, these party dullards from Munich!  Unbearable.’"

The tabloid press: On 29 November 2006, News Corp's New York Post ran its front page with a paparazzi photo of Lindsay Lohan (b 1986), Britney Spears (b 1981) and Paris Hilton (b 1981), the snap taken outside a Los Angeles nightclub, shortly before dawn.  Remembered for the classic tabloid headline Bimbo Summit, the car was Ms Hilton's Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (C199 (2003-2009)).

The term "tabloid press" refers to down-market style of journalism designed to enjoy wide appeal through an emphasis on scandals, sensation and sport, featuring as many celebrities as possible.  The word tabloid was originally a trademark for a medicine which had been compressed into a small tablet, the construct being tab(let) + -oid (the suffix from the Ancient Greek -ειδής (-eidḗs) & -οειδής (-oeidḗs) (the ο being the last vowel of the stem to which the suffix is attached), from εἶδος (eîdos) (form, likeness)).  From the idea of the pill being the small version of something bigger, tabloid came to be used to refer to miniaturized iterations of a variety of stuff, newspapers being the best known use.  A tabloid is a newspaper with a compact page size smaller than broadsheet but despite the name, there is no standardized size for the format but it's generally about half the size of a broadsheet.  In recent decades, economic reality has intruded on the newspaper business and there are now a number of tabloid-sized newspapers (called "compacts" to distinguish them from the less reputable) which don't descend to the level of tabloid journalism (although there has been a general lowering of standards).

The Mean Girls (2004) Burn Book (left) and Lindsay Lohan burning an “inflammatory” tabloid magazine, Lindsay Lohan: The Obsession, GQ Magazine, October 2006.

In Mean Girls, the Burn Book gained its notoriety from being packed with inflammatory comments.  In a visual critique of the tabloid press's "obsession" with her (admittedly incident-packed young) life, Lindsay Lohan in 2006 posed for a photo-shoot by Terry Richardson (b 1965) for GQ (Gentlemen's Quarterly) magazine.  Titled Lindsay Lohan: The Obsession, the theme was her as a case-study of the way the “tabloid press” handled celebrity culture, the joke being a magazine with “inflammatory content about her” being literally set aflame, the glossy paper of course being flammable.  It’s appears a consensus in the “media studies” crew this aspect of “tabloid culture” peaked in the first dozen-odd years of the twenty-first century, the reasons for that including (1) the period having an exceptionally large cast of suitable subjects, (2) smart phones with HD (high-definition) cameras becoming consumer items meaning potential content proliferated (ie what once would not have been photographed now became available to editors as low cost images) and (3) social media sites not having attained critical mass, all factors which at the time enabled the lower-end glossies to flourish.

Dart

Dart (pronounced dahrt)

(1) A small, slender missile, sharply pointed at one end, typically feathered (or with the shape emulated in plastic) at the other and (1) propelled by hand, as in the game of darts (2) by a blowgun when used as a weapon or (3) by some form of mechanical device such as a dart-gun.

(2) Something similar in function to such a missile.

(3) In zoology, a slender pointed structure, as in snails for aiding copulation or in nematodes for penetrating the host's tissues; used generally to describe the stinging members of insects.

(4) Any of various tropical and semitropical fish, notably the dace (Leuciscus leuciscus).

(5) Any of various species of the hesperiid butterfly notably the dingy dart (of the species Suniana lascivia, endemic to Australia).

(6) In the plural (as darts (used with a singular verb), a game in which darts are thrown at a target usually marked with concentric circles divided into segments and with a bull's-eye in the center.

(7) In tailoring, a tapered seam of fabric for adjusting the fit of a garment (a tapered tuck).

(8) In military use, a dart-shaped target towed behind an aircraft to train shooters (a specific shape of what was once called a target drone).

(9) An act of darting; a sudden swift movement; swiftly to move; to thrust, spring or start suddenly and run swiftly.

(10) To shoot with a dart, especially a tranquilizer dart.

(11) To throw with a sudden effort or thrust; to hurl or launch.

(12) To send forth suddenly or rapidly; to emit; to shoot.

(13) In genetics, as the acronym DarT, Diversity arrays Technology (a genetic marker technique).

(14) Figuratively, words which wound or hurt feelings.

(15) In slang, a cigarette (Canada & Australia; dated).  The idea was a “lung dart”.

(16) In slang, a plan, plot or scheme (Australia, obsolete).

(17) In disaster management, as the acronym DART, variously: Disaster Assistance Response Team, Disaster Animal Response Team, Disaster Area Response Team, Disaster Assistance & Rescue Team and Disaster Response Team

1275–1325: From the Middle English dart & darce, from the Anglo-French & Old French dart & dard (dart), from the Late Latin dardus (dart, javelin), from the Old Low Franconian darōþu (dart, spear), from the Proto-Germanic darōþuz (dart, spear), from the primitive Indo-European dherh- (to leap, spring);.  It was related to the Old English daroth (spear), daroþ & dearod (javelin, spear, dart), the Swedish dart (dart, dagger), the Icelandic darraður, darr & dör (dart, spear), the Old High German tart (dart) and the Old Norse darrathr (spear, lance).  The Italian and Spanish dardo are believed to be of Germanic origin via Old Provençal.  The word dart can be quite specific but depending on context the synonyms can include arrow or barb (noun), dash, bolt or shoot (verb) or cigarette (slang).  Dart & darting are nouns & verbs, darted & dartle are verbs, darter is a noun, verb & adjective, dartingness is a noun, darty is a verb & adjective, dartingly is an adverb; the noun plural is darts.

Between the eyeballs: Crooked Hillary Clinton dart board.

The late fourteenth century darten (to pierce with a dart) was from the noun and is long obsolete while the sense of “throw with a sudden thrust" dates from the 1570s.  The intransitive meaning “to move swiftly” emerged in the 1610s, as did that of “spring or start suddenly and run or move quickly” (ie “as a dart does”).  The name was first applied to the small European freshwater fish in the mid-fifteenth century, based on the creature’s rapid, sudden (darting) movements (other names included dars, dase & dare, from the Old French darz (a dace), the nominative or plural of dart, all uses based on the fish’s swiftness.  The alternative etymology in this context was a link with the Medieval Latin darsus (a dart), said to be of Gaulish origin.

The previously obscure Didymos.

As an acronym, there are dozens of “Darts & DARTS” but the most intriguing was NASA’s (the US National Aeronautics & Space Administration) Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission, launched from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base on 23 November, 2021 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.  A kamikaze vehicle, DART’s targets were the Asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos, impact achieved on 26 September, 2022.  In cosmic terms, a fragment of dust, Dimorphos has a diameter of some 160 metres (530 feet) while Didymos around which it orbits spans 780 metres (2,560-foot).  However, although miniscule given the scale of the (known) universe, even a lump the size of Dimorphos could cause carnage & destruction if it struck earth and DART’s purpose was an investigation of the efficacy using kinetic impact to change an asteroid’s motion in space (ie altering the object’s trajectory so it misses rather than hits Earth).  Neither Dimorphos nor Didymos posed a threat but their size and physical characteristics made them for NASA’s purposes an ideal benchmarking target.  The test produced a wealth of data and proved the concept was viable, one finding being the escaping impact ejecta (ie chunks of matter dislodged by the impact) transferred substantially more momentum the actual impact; that consequence which would have pleased the chaos theorists.  DART proved the method worked although it wasn’t as spectacular as the nuclear explosions preferred by Hollywood.

The name dart is now also used of various (similar or related) various tropical and semitropical fish.  It was in Middle English Cupid's love-arrows were first referred to as Cupid's dart (Catananche caerulea).  The modern dart-board was unknown until 1901 although similar games (the idea of archery with hand-thrown arrows) long predated this.  In zoology, the marvelously named “dart sac” describes a sac connected with the reproductive organs of certain land snails; it contains the “love dart” the synonyms of which are bursa telae & stylophore.  In archaeology, the term “fairy dart” describes a prehistoric stone arrowhead (an elf arrow).  A “poison dart” may be fired either from a dart gun or a blow-pipe (the term “dart-pipe” seems never to have been current) while a tranquilizer dart (often used in the management of large or dangerous animals) is always loaded into a dart gun.  The terms “javelin dart”, “lawn jart”, “jart” & “yard dart” are terms which refer to the large darts used in certain lawn games.  In the hobby of model aircraft, a “lawn dart” is an airframe with a noted propensity to crash (although it’s noted “pilot error” is sometimes a factor in this).  In military history, the “rope dart” was a weapon from ancient China which consisted of a long rope with a metal dart at the end, used to attack targets from long-range.

Lindsay Lohan enjoying the odd dart.  Inhaling a known carcinogen is of course not recommended but undeniably, Lindsay Lohan could make smoking look sexy.

The Dodge Dart

The original Dodge Dart was one of Chrysler's show cars which debuted in 1956, an era in which Detroit's designers were encouraged to let their imaginations wander among supersonic aircraft, rockets and the spaceships SF (science fiction) authors speculated would be used for the interplanetary travel some tried to convince their readers was not far in the future.  When first shown, the Dart featured a retractable hard-top (something Ford would soon offer in a production car) but when the that year's show season was over, it was shipped back to Carrozzeria Ghia in Turin to be fitted with a more conventional, folding soft-top.  After a return trans-Atlantic crossing, when the 1957 show circuit concluded (during which it was dubbed "Dart II"), it was again updated by Ghia and re-named Diablo (from the Spanish diablo (devil)).

1957 Dodge Diablo, the third and final version of the 1956 Dodge Dart show car.

Although a length of 218 inches (5.5 m) probably now sounds extravagant, by the standards of US designs in the 1950s it fitted in and among the weird and wonderful designs of the time (the regular production models as well as the show cars) the lines and detailing were really quite restrained and compared with many, the design has aged well, some of the styling motifs re-surfacing in subsequent decades, notably the wedge-look.  Underneath, the Diablo’s mechanicals were familiar, a 392 cubic inch (6.4 litre) Chrysler Hemi V8 with dual four-barrel carburetors delivering power to the rear wheels through a push-button TorqueFlite automatic transmission.  Rated at 375 horsepower, the Hemi ensured the performance matched the looks, something aided by the exceptional aerodynamic efficiency, the claimed C_d (coefficient of drag) of 0.17 state of the art even in 2026.  Some engineers doubt it would return such a low number using modern wind-tunnel techniques but, by the standards of the age, doubtlessly it was slippery and (with less hyperbole than usual), Chrysler promoted the Diablo as the “Hydroplane on Wheels”,  During Chrysler’s ownership of Lamborghini (1987-1994), the name was revived for the Lamborghini Diablo 1990-2001 which replaced the Countach (1974-1990).  Visually, both the Italian cars own something of a debt to the Darts of the 1950s but neither represented quite the advance in aerodynamics Chrysler achieved all those years ago although the Lamborghini was good enough finally to achieve 200 mph (320 km/h), something which in the 1970s & 1980s, the Countach and the contemporary Ferrari 365 GT4 BB (Berlinetta Boxer, 1973-1984) never quite managed, disappointing some.  The 1970s was a time of many disappointed expectations.

The memorable 1957 Chrysler 300C (left) showed the influence of the Diablo but a more rococo sensibility had afflicted the corporation which the 1960 Dart Phoenix D500 Convertible (right) illustrates.  Things would get worse. 

Dodge began production of the Dart in late 1959 as a lower-priced full-sized car, something necessitated by a corporate decision to withdraw the availability of Plymouths from Dodge dealerships.  Dodge benefited from this more than Plymouth but the model ranges of both were adjusted, along with those sold as Chryslers, resulting in the companion DeSoto brand (notionally positioned between Dodge & Chrysler) being squeezed to death; the last DeSotos left the factory in 1960 and the division shuttered.  Unlike its namesake from the show circuit, the 1959 Dodge Dart was hardly exceptional and it would barely have been noticed by the press had it not been for an unexpected corporate squabble between Chrysler and Daimler, a low volume English manufacturer of luxury vehicles (leather, burl walnut and all that) that was branching out into the sports car market.  Daimler planned to call their little roadster the "Dart".

Using one of his trademark outdoor settings, Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) photographed model Suzanne Kinnear (b 1935) adorning a Daimler Dart (SP250), wearing a Kashmoor coat and Otto Lucas beret with jewels by Cartier.  The image was published on the cover of Vogue's UK edition in November 1959.

With great expectations, Daimler displayed their Dart at the 1959 New York Motor Show and there the problems began.  Aware the little sports car was quite a departure from the luxurious but rather staid choice Daimler had for years offered (it was trying to forget the unpleasantness of the “Docker Daimlers” which were certainly not staid), the company had chosen the pleasingly alliterative “Dart” as its name, hoping it would convey the sense of something agile and fast (fast, genuinely it was, powered by a jewel-like 2.5 litre (155 cubic inch) V8 which generated an exhaust note of rare quality).  Unfortunately for them, Chrysler’s lawyers were faster still, objecting that they had already registered Dart as the name for a full-sized Dodge so Daimler needed a new name and quickly; the big Dodge would never be confused with the little Daimler but the lawyers insisted.  Imagination apparently exhausted, Daimler’s management reverted to the engineering project name and thus the car became the SP250 which was innocuous enough even for Chrysler's attorneys and it could have been worse.  Dodge had submitted their proposal for the Dart to the board but while the car found favor, the name did not and the marketing department was told to conduct research and come up with something the public would like.  From this the marketing types gleaned that “Dodge Zipp” would be popular and to be fair, dart and zip(p) can imply much the same thing but ultimately, the original was preferred.

Things get worse: The 1962 Dodge Dart (the single-season “second generation”) looked truly bizarre; things would sometimes be stranger than this but not often.

Dodge’s stylists (they weren’t yet called “designers”) were responsible for the appearance of the second generation Dart (something they could as they wish think of as proud boast or admission of guilt) but the reduced dimensions of it and the companion Polara were a consequence of corporate industrial espionage.  One of Chrysler’s spies (they had euphemistic job titles) had discovered Chevrolet’s new range would be smaller and this information was vital because, as the market’s highest volume manufacturer, where Chevrolet went, so the rest of the industry was compelled to follow so Chrysler made the decision to anticipate the future and downsize.  However, while the intelligence was correct, the analysis was flawed because what Chevrolet was developing was a new range, slotted between the large cars and the relatively new “compacts”, introduced in 1959-1960; the new concept were the “intermediates”, dimensionally between the compacts and what would come to be called the “full-size” lines.  Amusingly, the intermediates were about the size the standard US automobile had been as recently as the mid 1950s before rising prosperity saw it grown to a size many thought absurd; as fat overtook the land, so it did what rolled off Detroit’s production lines.

1962 Dodge Dart.

The intermediates proved a great success but Dodge’s problem in 1962 was it was selling a Dart it called “full-size” while obviously it no longer was.  In the US, there’s always been a sizeable part of the population that subscribes to the “bigger is always better” school of thought and it was them who maintained strong demand for the full-size machines, something the Dart’s redesign meant Dodge no longer could put in their showrooms.  To bandage over this self-inflicted injury, hastily was conjured the Dodge Custom 880, created by bolting the 1961 Dodge Polara front end to the larger 1962 Chrysler Newport (Chrysler’s “entry-level” model which had been the final nail in DeSoto’s coffin).  However, one silver lining in having available the smaller, lighter Dart was that when fitted with the potent (rated at a realistic 415 HP (309 kW)) 413 cubic inch (6.8 litre) “Ramcharger” V8, it was highly competitive in drag racing, where it established a number of records.

Dodge got it right with the 1967-1976 Darts which could be criticized for blandness but the design was simple, balanced and enjoyed international appeal.  Two versions by Chrysler Australia are pictured, a 1971 VG VIP sedan (left) and a 1970 VG Regal 770 Hardtop (right), both fitted with the 318 cubic inch (5.2 litre) LA V8.  

If Daimler had their problems with the Dart (which turned out to go beyond the nomenclature), so did Dodge.  After the misinterpretation of their spy's good work, Dodge's sales suffered because it was perceived to be offering “less metal for the money” which was true.  The Q&D (quick & dirty) solution of the disguised Newport papered over the crack until a permanent solution could be produced but not until the next model cycle (which began in the 1965 season) was Dodge's full-size line truly re-aligned.  However, one long-lasting benefit was the decision to take advantage of the public perception “Dart” now meant something smaller and Dodge in 1963 shifted the name to its compact line which for years would in many places be a success.  It was the generation built for a decade between 1967-1976 which was most lucrative for the corporation, the cheap-to-produce platform providing the basis for vehicles as diverse as taxi-cabs, pick-ups, convertibles, remarkably effective muscle cars and even some crazy machines almost ready for the drag strip.  Being a compact-sized car in the US, the Dart also proved a handy export to markets where it could be sold as a “big” car and the Dart (sometimes locally assembled or wholly or partially manufactured) was sold in Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Europe, East Asia, South Africa and South America.  In a form little different from the original, the “compact” Dart lasted until 1980 in South America and in Australia until 1981 although there the body-shape had in 1971 switched to the “fuselage” style with the platform carried over.

How a Dodge Hemi Dart would have appeared in 1968 (left) and Hemi Darts ready for collection or dispatch in the yard of the Detroit production facility.

The most highly regarded of the 1967-1976 US Darts were those fitted with the 340 cubic inch (5.6 litre) small-block (LA) V8 which created a much better all-round package than those using the 383 (6.3) and 7.2 (7.2) big-block V8s which tended to be inferior in just about every way unless travelling in a straight line on a very smooth surface (preferably over a distance of about a ¼ mile (400 m) and even there the 340 over-delivered.  The wildest of all the Darts were the 80 (built in 1968) equipped with a version of the 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Hemi V8 tuned to a specification closer to race-ready than that used in the “Street Hemi” which was the corporation’s highest-performance option.  Except for the drive-train, the Hemi Darts were an extreme example of what the industry called a “strippers”: cars “stripped” of all but the essentials.  There was thus no radio and no carpeting, common enough in strippers but the Hemi Darts lacked even armrests, external rear-view mirrors, window-winding mechanisms or even a back seat.  Nor was the appearance of these shockingly single-purpose machines anything like what was usually seen in a showroom, most of the body painted only in primer while the hood (bonnet) and front fenders, rendered in lightweight black fibreglass, were left unpainted.

The warning: What not to do, lest one's grape block should turn to wine.  In the same vein, seeking to avoid tiresome legal difficulties, Dodge had purchasers sign an addendum to the sales contract acknowledging Hemi Darts were not intended not as road cars but for use in “supervised acceleration trials” (ie drag racing).  Despite that, these were the last days that in the US one could find a jurisdiction prepared to register such things for street use and some owners did that, apparently taking Dodge’s disclaimer about as seriously as those in the prohibition era (1920-1933) observed the warning on packets of “concentrated grape blocks” not add certain things to the mix, “otherwise fermentation sets in”.

The Dendrobates tinctorius “Giant Orange”.  The common name (Dyeing Poison Dart Frog) was derived from reports by European explorers that in regions where it was endemic, indigenous inhabitants used brightly colored frogs to dye feathers & fabrics.  The collective noun for frogs is a group of frogs is army, colony or knot.

Described by retailers as a “great beginner frog” (the reason for that presumably understood by collectors) and “best kept in pairs”, a typical RRP (recommended retail price) in the US seems to range between US$79-99.  The adjective tinctorious (from the noun tincture) dates from the late eighteenth century and appears first to have been used of colorful plants.  Even in horticulture it has become rare but an echo survives in the Dendrobates Tinctorius, a frog much prized by collectors and photographers for its striking colors and patterns.  Unsurprisingly referred to by the standard abbreviation “tincs”, Dendrobates Tinctorius is one of the largest species of poison dart frogs, although in global terms still hardly large, the largest some 2 inches (50 mm) length. They are native to the rainforests of South America and appear in dramatic color combinations including hues of blue, black, yellow and orange but safely can be kept by hobbyists because in captivity they're not poisonous, the toxicity in the wild by virtue of their preferred diet of small invertebrates, not consumed in a captive environment.  Prices of adults in the most desired color mixes can exceed US$200.

Although prized by batrachophiles (frog enthusiasts) and giggers (those who collect or hunt wild frogs (by hand for those wanting live specimens; others resorting usually to a pronged spear), the Dart frog mostly had been obscure amphibians until in February 2026 a collective statement by the intelligence agencies of four European nations (France, Germany the Netherlands, Sweden & the UK) released the results of an inquiry which found Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny (1976-2024) had been murdered by use of a deadly toxin found in the skin of Ecuadorian dart frogs (epibatidine).  The investigators concluded the murder was committed by an agent or agents of the Russian state, Mr Navalny dying while imprisoned in a remote Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence; tissue samples from his body were secured prior to his burial and it was these which were analysed in Western laboratories.  A statement from the British government added that as well as the “barbaric” assassination, the use of a toxin was a “…flagrant violation by Russia of the CWC” (chemical weapons convention) and it would be lodging a report with the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons).

Alexei Navalny (standing, centre) in a screen capture from CCTV footage of a court session, IK-2 penal colony, Vladimir region, Russia, February, 2022.

Stating what was, given Mr Navalny’s incarceration in the arctic, the obvious, the statement made the point: “Only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin to target Navalny during his imprisonment in a Russian penal colony in Siberia, and we hold it responsible for his death.  Epibatidine can be found naturally in dart frogs in the wild in South America.  Dart frogs in captivity do not produce this toxin and it is not found naturally in Russia.  There is no innocent explanation for its presence in Navalny’s body.”  Additionally, it was noted each little frog had in its skin little more than a microgram of the toxin and a laboratory would need to have harvested hundreds of them to extract the volume sufficient to produce a deliverable dose of sufficient potency to kill a healthy, adult human.  Even had Mr Navalny been permitted to keep in his cell a colony of a dozen Dart frogs which he force-fed with small invertebrates, they’d not have posed a danger.  Although the KGB (including its precursor organizations and various franchises within the Warsaw Pact) once favored traditional murder weapons (clubs, bullets, ice axes, daggers, bare hands etc), of late they’ve gone more “high tech” and as well frog toxins, use has extended to (1) ricin (a highly toxic protein derived from castor beans) delivered by a dart gun (disguised as a umbrella!) which was used to kill dissident author Georgi Markov (1929-1978), (2) radioactive polonium served (in a cup of tea!) to defector Alexander Litvinenko (1962-2006) and (3) the Russian-developed Novichok (nerve agent) although former KGB spy Sergei Skripal (b 1951) survived that attempt on his life.  All three of those incidents occurred in London, the KGB liking to remind dissidents, defectors and other trouble-makers that they’re safe nowhere.  Despite the history, the Kremlin continued to maintain Mr Navalny died from “natural causes” and claimed the allegations were just: “A planted story and attempt by Western governments to distract attention from their many problems.”  The denial from Moscow was treated by western analysts as a tacit admission of guilt on the basis of the Cold War dictum: “Something cannot be thought proven true until the Kremlin denies it.”

Replica of “Umbrella gun” produced by the KGB’s Moscow laboratory, 1978, International museum of spying.  One of the most commonly carried accessories in London, a “special” umbrella was an ideal murder weapon in that city, able to be “hidden in plain sight” whereas an an ice axe might be conspicuous.  This is one of the best-known dart guns.    

Russians famously enjoy dark humor but it’s not known if they chose to deliver the Dart Frog toxin with a dart gun although that would have been a fitting nod to “special umbrella” used in 1978 to target Georgi Markov as crossed the Thames, walking across Waterloo Bridge; there was a time when the notion of “dart frog juice in a dart gun” would much have pleased those in the Lubyanka but perhaps things are now more corporatized.  However it was done, the death of Alexei Navalny is one chapter in the long (and still growing) list of assassinations by the Russian or Soviet State and, as a piece of applied statecraft, the practice dates from at least Russia's early monarchical era which began in the 860s.  It was however under comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) that state-sanctioned murder was undertaken on an industrial scale (indeed, so large was the death toll most historians estimate the body-count only by rounding (usually up) to the closest million) and of the many victims, the most celebrated remains comrade Leon Trotsky (1879-1940; founder of the Fourth International), once one of Stalin’s fellow Bolshevik revolutionaries.

Comrade Stalin (left), an ice axe (centre) and comrade Trotsky (right).  The standard-length ice axe is ideal for its intended purpose but to large easily to be concealed under clothing and too cumbersome to comfortably to wield in a confined space.  

Even by the standards of political assassinations (a long tale of the brutal and bizarre), the events surrounding Trotsky’s death were unusual.  Although, living in exile in Mexico, comrade Trotsky’s influence on those in the Soviet Union (or anywhere else) was negligible, not only was comrade Stalin a great hater who nursed his many grudges until circumstances permitted a good opportunity for vengeance but he also thought ahead; concerned Trotsky and his heretical writings might one day be a real threat, years before the assassin’s visit, he’d decided his erstwhile associate must die.  The NKVD had already succeeded in killing Trotsky’s son (imaginatively disguised as “medical misadventure” during a routine appendectomy) and, more dramatically, had decapitated his secretary in his Paris apartment but operations beyond Europe were more complex and the agent allocated the task was the Moscow-trained Spanish communist Ramón Mercader (1913–1978), then also living in exile in Mexico City under the pseudonym Frank Jacson.  Diligently watching his residence and researching the habits of his target, comrade Mercader posed as the lover of Trotsky's courier and was convincing enough to be welcomed into the impressively fortified villa on the city’s outskirts.  Either the NKVD’s training in such matters was first-rate or Mercader had a flair for the business because, after bringing Trotsky’s grandchildren presents and playing games with them in the garden, over the course of weeks, he became a valued house-guest, often engaging his intended victim in earnest discussions about politics and international affairs, careful always to ensure his host could assume the role of wise oracle.

Early on Tuesday, 20 August 1940, on the pretext of asking if an article he’d drafted was ready for publication, the assassin handed over the manuscript which Trotsky took to his desk and began reading, his back to the author.  Although also carrying a dagger and revolver, Mercader choose as the murder weapon the ice axe he’d be able to conceal under his raincoat by shortening it (sawing off half the wooden handle), his reasonable rationale being (1) it should be more effective than the knife and (2) it would be quieter than discharging the gun.  In seconds, Mercader drove the pick into the back of Trotsky’s skull and although the injury would prove mortal, it was not instantly fatal, the immediate aftermath described by the killer during a subsequent police interview: “[He] screamed in such a way that I will never forget it as long as I live. His scream was Aaaaa . . . very long, infinitely long and it still seems to me as if that scream were piercing my brain. I saw Trotsky get up like a madman.  He threw himself at me and bit my hand…”  Mercader would likely have been beaten to death by Trotsky’s bodyguards but was saved by the dying man ordering them to stop because he wanted to have him admit his evil deed had been done on the orders of comrade Stalin.  The next day, in hospital, he succumbed to a traumatic brain injury but not before cursing Stalin as his killer.

Ten years after: rootless cosmopolitan comrade Trotsky (left) talking to comrade Stalin (right), Moscow, 1930 (left) and Mexican police showing the "sawn-off" ice axe used in the murder (right).

By the standards of NKVD “wet operations” (clandestine, “authorized” executions) the “Mexico business” was messy with (1) the assassin arrested, (2) the murder weapon taken as evidence, (3) the body not disposed of and (4) the cause of death certainly not able to be classed as “an accident”, “misadventure” or “natural causes”.  The suspect however did not implicate the NKVD, initially claiming he’d killed Trotsky over a dispute they were having on a doctrinal matter relating to Marxist interpretation and later changing the story to allege it was over something more personal; this he maintained while serving his 20 year sentence in a Mexico prison; Moscow denied having anything to do the matter, even expressing condolences to the family.  That was of course is an MRDA in the spirit of: “Something cannot be thought proven true until the Kremlin denies it” which, as the Alexei Navalny affair suggests, is a dictum which remains valid still in this century.  Still, analysts today conclude comrade Stalin may not have been wholly unhappy at the “botched” operation because (1) he had “plausible deniability” of involvement and (2) the murder made headlines around the word so those likely to be “trouble-makers” would know NKVD agents were capable of liquidating high-level, well-protected targets, well beyond the borders of the Soviet Union.  So there was a silver lining, unlike the later “botched” dispatch of dissident Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi (1958-2018) in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Türkiye.

Unannounced and for decades not revealed, comrade Stalin decorated comrade Mercader in absentia, presumably for “services to the state” although publicly he denounced him as a “dangerous Trotskyist”, disavowing any involvement in the crime.  After serving nearly all his sentence, Mercader was released, in 1961 returning to the Soviet Union after a brief sojourn in Cuba, then under new management following comrade Fidel Castro’s (1926–2016; prime-minister or president of Cuba 1959-2008) communist revolution.  In Moscow, the KGB presented him with the nation’s highest awards (Hero of the Soviet Union & the Order of Lenin), after which he enjoyed two decades odd of comfortable semi-retirement in a number of sinecures in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  It was only after dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 when, for a brief few years the state’s archives were open to Western researchers, that documents were discovered confirming the assassination had been a NKVD operation authorized “at the highest level in Moscow” (ie comrade Stalin signed the death warrant, his hand well-practiced at such things).