Camembert & Brie

Camembert (pronounced kam-uhm-bair or ka-mahn-ber (French))

(1) A village in the Normandy region of France.

(2) A mellow, soft cheese, the centre of which is creamy and of a golden cream color, made from cow's milk.

1867 (the cheese): The cheese is named after Camembert, the village near Argentan, Normandy where it originated.  The village name was from the Medieval Latin Maimberti (field of Maimbert), a West Germanic personal name derived from the Proto-Germanic maginą (strength, power, might) and the Proto-Germanic berhtaz (bright).  A rich, sweet, yellowish cream-cheese with the name Camembert was first sold in 1867, but the familiar, modern form of the cheese dates from 1791.  Camembert is a masculine form; the strong, genitive Camembertes or Camemberts and there is no plural.

Camembert labels from the Serge Schéhadé collection.

A tyrosemiophile is one for whom collecting the colorful (usually round) labels affixed to wooden boxes of Camembert cheese wheels is (depending on where they sit on the spectrum) variously a hobby, calling or obsession.  The practice is called tyrosemiophilia (the construct being the Ancient Greek tyro (cheese) + semio (sign; label) + philos (love) and while there appears to be no documented use of tyrosemiophobia (morbid dread or aversion to Camembert cheese labels), there’s no reason why someone who suffered some disturbing experience with a wheel of Camembert wouldn’t become a tyrosemiophobe.  Collecting objects with a high degree of structural similarity (Camembert cheese labels, beer bottle tops etc) has much appeal for some and in cultural studies is classed as “connoisseurial collecting”, described as a collecting focused on variations within a narrow type (which can be structural, thematic chronologic etc but tends to exclude much within the field collected by those casting a wider net).  The hobby (or whatever) falls under the rubric of “typological accumulation” in which objects are exemplars of a “type” and while each is to some degree different, their attraction lies in the similarity, something like Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) exasperated description of peasants as “…like a sack of potatoes, all the same, yet all different”.

Camembert labels from the Serge Schéhadé collection.

Whether such things especially draw “obsessional collectors” doesn’t seem to have been studied but the characteristics of the stuff (Camembert cheese labels a classic example): (1) structurally similar objects, (2) tiny differences (colors, typography etc) and (3) adaptability to being stored or displayed in a precise, geometrical form may hint at the personality type attracted.  Cognitive psychology has identified how pleasing some find “variation within sameness” and that seemed in some way linked to PRDW (pattern recognition dopamine reward) in which the brain rewards the subject for creating, modifying or spotting subtle distinctions within a structured set.  Cheese production being an ongoing business, the collecting of Camembert labels is obviously not a closed system but within the whole, it can be possible to achieve “complete sets” (a single producer, region, period etc) and this aspect too is a thing among collectors.

Camembert labels from the Serge Schéhadé collection.

Among producers, there is something of a tradition of making the labels miniature “works of art” with themes including, florals, farm animals, fields of grass, famous (dead) figures from history and, of course, comely milkmaids in period costumes.  There is in France the CTF (Club Tyrosémiophile de France), which has existed since 1960 and still conducts annual conferences (a significant part of which are the “swap-meet” sessions at which members can sell or exchange labels and like any commodity, based on desirability (the prime determinate usually rarity), the value of items varies.  Collectively the club’s inventory now includes several million labels, many of which are on display at the Camembert Museum in Vimoutiers, Normandy and there are plans to digitize the collection and make them publically accessible.  That millions of different cheese labels exist may not surprise those who recall the (apparently apocryphal) quote attributed to Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970; President of France 1959-1969): “How can one govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” because, even in Le Général’s time, the true count was well into four figures.  In a sign of the times, as the CTF’s membership roll dies off, numbers are shrinking because the young seem not attracted to the cause.  Interestingly, it’s said the artistic labels (called étiquettes in French) date from circa 1910 where they were used as means of attracting children, the idea being the same as the little trinkets distributed in breakfast cereal boxes; the small proto-consumers being trained as “influencers” there to persuade their parents to buy more cheese so they could afforce their label collection.  

Brie (pronounced bree)

(1) A mainly agricultural region in north-east France, between the Seine and the Marne, noted especially for its cheese.

(2) A salted, creamy, white, soft cheese, ripened with bacterial action, originating in Brie and made from cow's milk.

(3) A female given name (with the spelling variant Bree), from the French geographical region but also as a truncation of Brianna.

1848 (the cheese): The name of the cheese is derived from the name of the district in department Seine-et-Marne, southeast of Paris, the source being the Gaulish briga (hill, height).  The English brier (a type of tobacco pipe introduced circa 1859) is unrelated to the cheese or the region in France which shares the name.  The pipes were made from the root of the Erica arborea shrub from the south of France and Corsica, from the French bruyère (heath plant) from the twelfth century Old French bruiere (heather, briar, heathland, moor), from the Gallo-Roman brucaria, from the Late Latin brucus (heather), from the Gaulish bruko- (thought linked with the Breton brug (heath), the Welsh brwg and the Old Irish froech).  The noun plural is bries.

Lindsay Lohan with cheese board, rendered by Vovsoft as a pen drawing: Clockwise from top left, Camembert, Shropshire, Morbier, Nerina & Appenzeller.

Before the French crown assumed full-control in the thirteenth century, the region of Brie was from the ninth century divided into three sections ruled by different feudal lords, (1) the western Brie française (controlled by the King of France), corresponding approximately to the modern department of Seine-et-Marne in the Île-de-France region, (2) the eastern Brie champenoise (controlled by the Duke of Champagne), forming a portion of the modern department of Marne in the historic region of Champagne (part of modern-day Grand Est) and (3) the northern Brie pouilleuse, forming part of the modern department of Aisne in Picardy.  As well as the cheese, Brie is noted for the culturing of roses, introduced circa 1795 by the French explorer Admiral Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville (1729–1811).  Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Bougainville Island and the Bougainvillea flower were both named after him.

Whipped Brie dip.

A trick of commercial caterers, wedding planners and others who have to gain the maximum visual value from the food budget is whipped Brie dip.  Often a feature of charcuterie boards or a flourish at wine & cheese events, apart from the taste, the main attraction is that aerating Brie almost doubles its volume, making it a cost-effective component.  Technically, the reason the technique works so well as a base is the aeration increases the surface area of the material which comes into contact with the taste receptors.  There are few rules about what goes into a whipped Brie dip although honey, salty bacon & lemon-infused thyme tend often to be used, some including crushed walnuts.  Timing has to be managed because it’s at its best just after being prepared and served at room temperature; if it’s chilled it sets hard and becomes difficult to spread and will break any cracker being dipped.  So, it can be a last-minute task but preparation time is brief and it’s worth it.

Brie & Camembert

Wheel of Camembert.

Both thought delicious by cheese fiends, Brie & Camembert are often confused because the appearance is so similar, both soft, creamy cheeses with an edible white rind and tending to be sold in wheels (squat little cylinders) though it’s easier to tell the difference with cheeses made in France because there they usually maintain the convention that a Camembert will be smaller (unless it’s a baby Brie or petit Brie which will be indicated on the label).  Because most Brie is matured in larger wheels, it’s often sold in wedges, rare among Camembert because the wheels are so small.  However, in the barbaric English-speaking world where anything goes, Brie is sometimes sold in smaller sizes.  Traditionally, like most, they were farmhouse cheeses, but have long been produced mostly in larger artisanal cheeseries or on an industrial scale.

Wheel of Brie.

Both originally created using unpasteurized cow's milk, thanks to the dictatorial ways of humorless EU eurocrats and their vendetta against raw milk, they’re now almost always made with pasteurized milk although there remain two AOP (Appellation d'origine protégée (Protected designation of origin)) unpasteurised Bries, Brie de Meaux & Brie de Melun and one AOP Camembert, Camembert de Normandie, said best to be enjoyed with French cider.  As a cheese, Brie is characterized as being refined, polite and smooth whereas a Camembert is more rustic, the taste and texture earthier (food critics like to say it has more of a “mushroomy taste”), cream being added to the curd of Brie which lends it a milder, more buttery finish and double and triple Brie are even more so.  To ensure the integrity of the brand, French agricultural law demands that a double-cream cheese must contain 60-70% butterfat (which results a fat content around 30%+ in the finished product.  Although variations exist, according to calorieking.com.au, Brie contains 30.5g fat and 18.5g protein per 100g and the same amount of Camembert, 25g fat and 19.5g protein.

Visually, if left for a while at room temperature, it’s easier to tell the difference because a Camembert will melt whereas Brie will retain its structure.  Because of the marked propensity to melt into something truly gooey, Camembert is often used in cooking, sometimes baked and paired with cranberry sauce or walnuts but. Like Brie, is also a staple of cheese plates, served with things like grapes or figs and eaten with crackers, crusty bread and just about any variety of wine.  One local tradition in the Brie region was the Brie Noir (a type of longer-ripened Brie) which villagers dipped into their café au lait over breakfast.

La persistència de la memòria (The persistence of memory, 1931), oil on canvas by Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City.

Salvador Dalí’s (1904-1989) most reproduced and best-known painting, La persistència de la memòria is better known by the more evocative title: Melting clocks.  Amused at the suggestion the flaccidity of the watches was a surreal pondering of the implications of Albert Einstein's (1879-1955) theory of special relativity (1905), Dalí provided an earthier explanation, saying his inspiration came from imagining a wheel of Camembert melting in a Catalan summer sun.  Dali's distortions were of course a deliberate device.  Celebrities who manage inadvertently to produce their own by not quite mastering Photoshop or other image-editing software quickly find the internet an unforgiving critic.  For better or worse, AI artificial intelligence has now reached the point where such manipulation is often close to undetectable.

Turkey, Camembert and cranberry pizza (serves 4)

Ingredients

4 medium pita breads
Olive oil spray
120ml cranberry sauce
1 small garlic clove, minced
80g Camembert, sliced and torn
200g lean shaved turkey breast
8 table spoons parmesan cheese
1 cup rocket leaves

Instructions

(1) Heat oven to 390°F (200°C) conventional or 360°F (180°C) fan-forced and line 2 oven trays with baking paper.

(2) Place pita bread on trays and spray lightly with olive oil.

(3) Mix cranberry sauce with garlic and smear onto the pita bread.

(4) Top with Camembert, shaved turkey and finish with a sprinkling of parmesan.

(5) Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes until golden and the cheese has melted.

(6) Remove from the oven, sprinkle over rocket leaves and serve.

Phyllo-Wrapped Brie With Hot Honey and Anchovies (serves 10-12)

Ingredients

¼ cup chopped roasted red bell pepper (pre-packaged is fine as well as fresh)
3 oil-packed anchovy fillets, minced
1 garlic clove, finely grated or minced
¾ teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1 pound phyllo (or filo) dough (must be thawed if bought frozen)
10 tablespoons (1¼ sticks) unsalted butter, melted
1 large (about 26 ounces (750 grams)) wheel of Brie
Hot honey (or regular honey (see below)) for serving
Crackers and/or sliced bread, for serving

Instructions

(1) Heat the oven to 425°F (220°F). In a small bowl, stir together the roasted bell pepper, anchovies, garlic, and lemon zest. Set aside.

(2) On a clean work surface, lay out the phyllo dough and cover it with a barely damp kitchen towel to keep it from drying out. Take 2 phyllo sheets and lay them in an 11 × 17-inch rimmed baking sheet. Brush the top sheet generously with melted butter, then lay another 2 phyllo sheets on top the opposite way, so they cross in the centre and are perpendicular to the first two (like making a plus sign). Brush the top sheet with butter. Repeat the layers, reserving 4 sheets of phyllo.

(3) Using a long sharp kitchen knife, halve the Brie horizontally and lay one half, cut-side up, in the centre of the phyllo (you will probably need another set of hands to help lift off the top layer of cheese). Then spread the red pepper mixture all over the top. Cover with the other half of Brie, cut-side down, and then fold the phyllo pieces up around the Brie. There will be a space in the centre on top where the Brie is uncovered, and that’s okay.

(4) Lightly crumple one of the remaining sheets of phyllo and place it on top of the phyllo/Brie package to cover up that space. Drizzle a little butter on top, then repeat with the remaining phyllo sheets, scattering them over the top of the pastry and drizzling a little butter each time. It may look messy but will bake up into gorgeous golden waves of pastry, so fear not.

(5) Bake until the phyllo is golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove it from the oven and let it rest for about 15 minutes before drizzling it with the hot honey. Slice (it will be runny) and serve with crackers or bread, and with more hot honey as needed.

Most baked Bries tend to the sweet with layers of jam or chutney beneath the crust but this is a savoury variation using anchovies, garlic, and roasted bell peppers.  A drizzle of honey and the pinch of lemon zest lends the dish a complexity and for the best effect it should be served straight from the oven because that’s when the Brie is at its most seductively gooey.  It’s ideal with crisp crackers or crusty bread for crunch.  The hot honey is a bit of a novelty and those who want to enhance or tone-down the effect can create their own by stirring a pinch or more of cayenne into any mild honey.

Accidie

Accidie (pronounced ak-si-dee)

Sloth; apathy, in the sense of both (1) a general listlessness and apathy and (2) spiritual torpor.

1200–1250: From the Middle English accidie, from the Anglo-Norman accidie, from the Old French accide & accidie, from the Medieval Latin accidia (an alteration of Late Latin acedia (sloth, torpor), from the Ancient Greek ἀκήδεια (akḗdeia) (indifference), the construct being ἀ- (a-) (in the sense of “not”) +‎ κῆδος (kêdos).  It was a doublet of acedia, still cited as an alternative form and replaced the Middle English accide.  The word was in active use between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries and was revived in the nineteenth as a literary adornment.  Accidie and acediast are nouns and acedious is an adjective; the noun plural is acediasts.

The alternative literary words include (1) ennui (a gripping listlessness or melancholia caused by boredom; depression), an unadapted borrowing from the French ennui, from the Old French enui (annoyance), from enuier (which in Modern French persists as ennuyer), from the Late Latin inodiō, from the Latin in odiō (hated) and a doublet of annoy, (2) weltschmerz, used as an alternative letter-case form of the German Weltschmerz (an apathetic or pessimistic view of life; depression concerning or discomfort with the human condition or state of the world; world-weariness), the construct being Welt (world) + Schmerz (physical ache, pain; emotional pain, heartache, sorrow) and coined by German Romantic writer Jean Paul (1763–1825) for his novel Selina (published posthumously in 1827) and (3) mal du siècle (apathy and world-weariness, involving pessimism towards the current state of the world, often along with nostalgia for the past (originally in the context of French Romanticism) (literally “disease of the century”) and coined by the French writer Alfred de Musset in his autobiographical novel La Confession d'un enfant du siècle (The Confession of a Child of the Century (1936)).

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December, 2011.

In Antiquity, the Greeks seemed to have refined accidie (which translated literally as being in “a state so inert as the be devoid of pain or care”) to be used of those who has become listless and no longer cared for their own lives or their society, thus distinguishing it from other conditions of melancholy which tended to be individually focused although in surviving medical texts, what’s being diagnosed was something like what might now be called “depression”.  Predictably, when adopted by moral theologians in Christian writing, it was depicted as a sin or at least a personal flaw.  Others wrote of it as a “demon” to be overcome and even a temptation placed by the Devil, one to which “young men who read poetry” seem to have been chronically prone.  It can be thought of as falling into the category of sloth, listed in the Medieval Latin tradition as of the seven deadly sins and appeared in Dante Alighieri’s (circa 1265–1321) Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy (circa 1310-1321)) not only as a sin worthy of damnation & eternal punishment but the very sin which led Dante to the edge of Hell.  In his unfinished Summa Theologiae (literally Summary of Theology), the Italian Dominican friar, philosopher & theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) noted accidie was a spiritual sorrow, induced by man’s flight from the Divine good, “…on account of the flesh utterly prevailing over the spirit”, the kind of despair which can culminate in the even greater sin of suicide.

Google ngram: Accidie 1800-2020.

Google ngram: Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

Etymologists note that between the mid sixteenth and mid nineteenth centuries the word acedia was close to extinct and whether it was the revival of interest in the Romantic poets (often a glum lot) or the increasing number of women becoming novelists, there was in the late 1800s a revival with the term, once the preserve of theologians, re-purposed as a decorative literary word; in the “terrible twentieth century” there was much scope for use and it appears in the writings of Ian Fleming (1908–1964), Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) and Samuel Beckett (1906-1989).  Intriguingly, in The Decline and Fall of Nokia (2014), Finnish-based expatriate US writer David J Cord introduced the concept of corporate acedia, citing the phenomenon as one of the causes of the collapse of Nokia's once dominant mobile device unit.

Joan Didion (1934-2021) and cigarette with her Daytona Yellow (OEM code 984) 1969 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray (on the C2 Corvette (1963-1967) and in 1968 the spelling had been "Sting Ray”).  The monochrome image was from a photo-session commissioned in 1970 by Life magazine and shot by staff photographer Julian Wasser (1933-2023), outside the house she was renting on Franklin Avenue in the Hollywood Hills.  To great acclaim, her first work of non-fiction, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968), had just been published.

Writing mostly, in one way or another, about “feelings”, Joan Didion’s work appealed mostly to a female readership but when photographs were published of her posing with her bright yellow Corvette, among men presumably she gained some “street cred” although that might have evaporated had they learned it was later traded for a Volvo; adding insult to injury, it was a Volvo station wagon with all that implies.  She was later interviewed about the apparent incongruity between owner and machine and acknowledged the strangeness, commenting: “I very definitely remember buying the Stingray because it was a crazy thing to do.  I bought it in Hollywood.”  Craziness and Hollywood were then of course synonymous and a C3 Corvette (1968-1982) really was the ideal symbol of the America about which Ms Didion wrote, being loud, flashy, rendered in plastic and flawed yet underpinned by a solid, well-engineered foundation; the notion of the former detracting from the latter was theme in in her essays on the American experience.

A 1969 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray in Daytona Yellow.

Disillusioned, melancholic and clinical, Ms Didion’s literary oeuvre suited the moment because while obviously political it was also spiritual, a critique of what she called the “accidie” of the late 1960s, the moral torpor of those disappointed by what had followed the hope and optimism captured by “Camelot”, the White House of John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963).  In retrospect Camelot was illusory but that of course made real the disillusionment of Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) leading the people not to a “great society” but deeper into Vietnam.  Her essays were in the style of the “new journalism” and sometimes compared with those of her contemporary Susan Sontag (1933-2004) but the two differed in method, tone, ideological orientation and, debatably, expectation if not purpose.

Susan Sontag (1962), monochrome image by Village Voice staff photographer Fred McDarrah (1926–2007).

Ms Didion’s used accidie to describe a society which the troubled 1960s seemed to have bludgeoned into a state not of acquiescence but indifference, a moral exhaustion.  Her writings were observational (and, as she admitted, sometimes “embellished” for didactic purposes), sceptical and cool, her conception of the failure of contemporary politics a matter of describing the disconnect between rhetoric and reality, understanding the language of theatre criticism was as appropriate as that of the lexicon of political science.  In a sense, 'twas ever thus but Ms Didion captured the imagination by illustrating just how far from the moorings of reality the political spectacle of myth-making had drifted.  Ms Sontag’s tone was declarative and distinctly authoritative (in the way of second-wave feminism), tending often to the polemic and the sense was she was writing in opposition to a collective immorality, not the kind of moral indifference Ms Didion detected.  Both were students of their nation’s cultural pathology but one seemed more a palliative care specialist tending a patient in their dying days while the other offered a diagnosis and suggested a cure which, while not something to enjoy: "would be good for them".  While Ms Didion distrusted ideological certainty, Ms Sontag engaged explicitly with “isms”, not in the sense of one writing of the history of ideas but as a protagonist, using language in an attempt to shape political consciousness, the former a kind of secular moral theologian mourning a loss of coherence in American life while the latter was passionate and wrote often with a strident urgency, never losing the sense that whatever her criticisms, things could be fixed and there was hope.  The irony of being an author to some degree afflicted by the very accide she described in others was not lost on Ms Didion.

Susan Sontag, circa 1971, photographed by Jim Cartier.  The pop-art portrait of comrade Chairman Mao Zedong (1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 1949-1976) was a print of Roy Lichtenstein's (1923–1997) Mao (1971) which had been used as the cover for US author Frederic Tuten's (b 1936) novel The Adventures of Mao on the Long March (1971).  Ms Sontag had written a most favourable review of the book and the framed print was reputedly a gift.

Joan Didion with Corvette, another image from Julian Wasser’s 1970 photo-shoot.  The staging in this one is for feminists to ponder.

While a stretch to say that in trading-in the Corvette for a Volvo station wagon, Ms Didion was tracking the nation which had moved from Kennedy to Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974), it’s too tempting not to make.  Of the Corvette, she used the phrase: “I gave up on it”, later recounting: “the dealer was baffled” but denied the change was related to moving after eight years from Malibu to leafy, up-market suburban Brentwood.  While she “…needed a new car because with the Corvette something was always wrong…” she “…didn’t need a Volvo station wagon” although did concede: “Maybe it was the idea of moving into Brentwood.”  She should have persevered because as many an owner of a C3 Corvette understands, the faults and flaws are just part of the brutish charm.  Whether the car still exists isn't known; while Corvette's have a higher than average survival rate, their use on drag strips & race tracks as well as their attractiveness to males aged 17-25 has meant not a few suffered misadventure.

Joan Didion with Corvette, rendered as oil on canvas with yellow filter.

The configuration of her car seems not anywhere documented but a reasonable guess is it likely was ordered with the (base) 300 horsepower (hp) version (ZQ3) of the 350 cubic inch (5.7 litre) small-block V8, coupled with the Turbo-Hydramatic 400 (TH400) (M40) three-speed automatic transmission (the lighter TH350 wouldn't be used until 1976 by which time power outputs had fallen so much the robustness of the TH400 was no longer required).  When scanning the option list, although things like the side-mounted exhaust system (N14) or the 430 hp versions (the iron-block L88 & all aluminium ZL1, the power ratings of what were barely-disguised race car engines deliberately understated, the true output between 540-560 hp) of the 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) big-block V8 would not have tempted Ms Didion, she may have ticked the box for the leather trim (available in six colors and the photos do suggest black (402 (but if vinyl the code was ZQ4)), air conditioning (C60), power steering (N40), power brakes (J50), power windows (A31) or an AM-FM radio (U69 and available also (at extra cost) with stereo (U79)).  Given she later traded-in the Corvette on a Volvo station wagon, presumably the speed warning indicator (U15) would have been thought superfluous but, living in Malibu, the alarm system (UA6) might have caught her eye.

An emo with 1977 Volvo 245 station wagon; if she had a Corvette to pose with she’d be smiling because Corvettes can make even emos happy.  This is Emma Myers (b 2002) as Pippa "Pip" Fitz-Amobi in A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (Netflix, 2024).

Quintessential symbols of France, Bridget Bardot (b 1934), Citroën La Déesse and a lit Gitanes.

The combination of a car, a woman with JBF and a cigarette continued to draw photographers even after smoking ceased to be glamorous and became a social crime.  First sold in 1910, Gitanes production in France survived two world wars, the Great Depression, Nazi occupation but the regime of Jacques Chirac (1932–2019; President of France 1995-2007) proved too much and, following the assault on tobacco by Brussels and Paris, in 2005 the factory in Lille was shuttered.  Although Gitanes (and the sister cigarette Gauloise) remain available in France, they are now shipped from Spain and while in most of the Western world fewer now smoke, Gitanes Blondes retain a cult following.

Emily Labowe with Mercedes-Benz 300 TD (S123), photographed by Kristin Gallegos.

An image like this illustrates why, even if no longer thought glamourous, smoking can still look sexy.  The 300 TD is finished in Manila Beige and for the W123 range Mercedes-Benz also offered the subdued Maple Yellow and the exuberant Sun Yellow which was as vivid as the Corvette's Daytona Yellow. 

No images seem to exist of Ms Didion with her Volvo station wagon but Laurel Canyon's Kristin Gallegos (b 1984) later followed Julian Wasser’s staging by photographing artist Emily Labowe (b 1993) with a Mercedes-Benz 300 TD station wagon and that once essential accessory: a cigarette.  One of the last of the “chrome Mercedes”, the W123 range was in production between 1975-1986 and the station wagon appeared in 1977 with the internal code S123 (only nerds use that and to the rest of the world they’re “W123 wagons”).  The designation was “T” (the very Germanic Tourismus und Transport (Touring and Transport)) or TD for the diesel-powered cars and the S123 was the company’s first station wagon to enter series production, previous such “long roof” models coming from coach-builders including many hearses & ambulances as well as station wagons.  The English still call station wagons "estates" (a clipping of "estate car") although a publication like Country Life probably still hankers after "shooting brake" and the most Prussian of the German style guides list the compound noun Kombinationskraftwagen which for decades has usually been clipped to the semi-formal Kombiwagen, (plural Kombiwagen or Kombiwägen) or, in general use: Kombi.

1978 Mercedes Benz 280 TE (S123).

That Mercedes-Benz in the mid-1970s decided their first station wagon in regular production should be a “T” (and understood as a Tourenwagen (touring car) rather than a “K” (ie Kombiwagen, the designation used by other manufacturers) reflected the prevailing German view of such cars.  Unlike the US where station wagons had long been emblematic of middle-class respectability (often as a family’s second car for the wife & mother) or England where the style enjoyed an association with the upper class HFS (huntin’, fishin’ & shootin’) set, to Germans the utilitarian long-roofs had a down-market image, bought only by those unable to afford separate vehicles for business & pleasure.  Coach-builders had of course used Mercedes-Benz saloons as the basis for station wagons, ambulances and hearses but these were always expensive and thus not tainted by association with thriftiness by necessity.  In their alphanumeric soup of model designations, Mercedes-Benz had previously used “K” to mean either Kompressor (supercharged) (eg 770 K) or Kurz  (short) (eg SSK) and other letters had also done double-duty, “L” standing for either Lang (long) (eg 500 SEL) or Licht (light) (eg SSKL) and “S” could mean both Super (300 SL) or Sports (300 SLR) so for the S123 “K” wasn’t avoided because of fears of confusing folk; it was just an image thing: "Don't mention the kombi".  That all changed in the 1980s when the Germans decided wagons were sexy after all, the high performance arms of Audi, BMW & Mercedes-Benz all producing some remarkably fast ones.   

Mercedes-Benz G4s: Gepäckwagen (baggage car, top left) & Funkauto (radio car, top right) and 300 Messwagen (bottom left) at speed on the test track, tethered to a W111 sedan (1959-1968, bottom right).

The factory did though over the decades build a handful including a brace of the three-axle G4s (W31, 1934-1939), one configured as a Gepäckwagen (baggage car), the other a Funkauto (radio car).  In 1960 there was also the Messwagen (measuring car), a kind of “rolling laboratory” from the era before technology allowed most testing to be emulated in software.  The capacious Messwagen was based on the W189 300 “Adenauer” (W186 & W189 1951-1962) and was then state of the art but by the 2020s, the capabilities of all the bulky equipment which filled the rear compartment could have been included in a single phone app.  Students of design will admire the mid-century modernism in the curve of the rear-side windows but might be surprised to learn the muscle car-like scoop on the roof is not an air-intake but an aperture housing ports for connecting the Messwagen’s electronic gear with the vehicle being monitored, the two closely driven in unison (often at high speed) on the test track while being linked with a few metres of cabling and although we now live in a wireless age, real nerds know often a cable is preferable, the old ways sometimes best.  The Messwagen remained in service until 1972 and is now on display at the factory’s museum in Stuttgart.   

1956 Mercedes-Benz 300c (W186 "Adenauer") Estate Car by Binz.

The factory's Messwagen wasn't the first use of the big W186/W189 for long-roof variants, hearses and ambulances having appeared in several European countries and there was at least one station wagon, proving consumption can be conspicuous yet still subtle, achieved usually if a bespoke creation is both expensive and functional.  The 300 saloons and four-door cabriolets were large, stately and beautifully built, the 1956 example pictured was delivered to a customer in the US who for whatever reason prized exclusivity over capacity or speed, all the major US manufacturers at the time offering station wagons able to accommodate more people and more more luggage while going much faster.  The 300 certainly would have delivered better fuel economy but that wouldn't have crossed the mind of the purchaser who would have been deterred from something like a Chrysler New Yorker or Ford Country Squire because they were, by comparison with her one-off, cheap and common whereas a custom built 300 “dripped money”; even to the uninformed they would obviously have been expensive and it was thus a classic "Veblen good" a quirk in the supply & demand curve of orthodox economics in that for a certain (ie the "1%") demographic demand for an item can increase as its price rises.  The car still exists, traded between collectors to be exhibited at concours d'elegance.

1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser (left), details of the apparatuses above the windscreen (centre) and the Breezeaway rear window lowered (right)

The 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser was notable for (1) the truly memorable model name, (2) the “Breezeway" rear window which could be lowered and (3) having a truly bizarre assembly  of “features” above the windscreen.  There’s no suggestion that when fashioning the 300 Messwagen the engineers in Stuttgart were aware of the Turnpike Cruiser but had they looked, it could have provided an inspiration for the way access to ports in the roof could have been handled.  Unfortunately, the pair of “radio aerials” protruding from the pods at the top of the Mercury’s A-pillars were a mere affectation, a “jet-age” motif embellishing what were actually air-intakes.  They were though a harbinger of the way in which future “measuring vehicles” would be configured when various forms of wireless communication had advanced to the point at which a cable connection was no longer required.  

Assassin

Assassin (pronounced uh-sas-in)

(1) A murderer, especially one who kills a politically prominent person for reason of fanaticism or profit.

(2) One of an order of devout Muslims, active in Persia and Syria circa 1090-1272, the prime object of whom was to assassinate Christian Crusaders (should be used with initial capital).

1525–1535: An English borrowing via French and Italian, from the Medieval Latin assassīnus (assassinī in the plural), from the Arabic Hashshashin (ḥashshāshīn in the plural) (eaters of hashish), the Arabic being حشّاشين, (ħashshāshīyīn (also Hashishin or Hashashiyyin).  It shares its etymological roots with the Arabic hashish (from the Arabic: حشيش (ḥashīsh)) and in the region is most associated with a group of Nizari Shia Persians who worked against various Arab and Persian targets.  The Hashishiyyin were an Ismaili Muslim sect at the time of the Crusades, under leadership of to Hasan ibu-al-Sabbah (known as shaik-al-jibal or "Old Man of the Mountains") although the name was widely applied to a number of secret sects operating in Persia and Syria circa 1090-1272.  The word was known in Anglo-Latin from the mid-thirteenth century and variations in spelling not unusual although hashishiyy (hashishiyyin in the plural) appears to be the most frequently used.  The plural suffix “-in” was a mistake by Medieval translators who assumed it part of the Bedouin word.  Assassin, assassination, assassinator, assassinatress, assassinatrix, assassinism, autassassinophilia and assassinship are nouns, assassining & assassinating are verbs and assassinlike & assassinous are adjectives; the noun plural is assassins.  The number of derived forms seems untypically high and although some are listed various as obsolete or archaic, that they ever existed is an indication the “assassin” may have exerted a special fascination.  A female assassin (there have been a few) was an assassinatress or assassinatrix (assassinatrices the plural) and they inspired a special horror, presumably because, (1) being less often suspected of being a murderer they might strike when least expected and (2) man may have harboured the fear their method of dispatch might be especially gruesome.  Noted assassinatrices include the Biblical Judith whose decapitation of Holofernes has been depicted in some of Renaissance art's most confronting paintings and Valerie Solanas (1936-1988) who in 1968 shot pop-artist Andy Warhol (1928-1987).  Warhol didn't immediately die from his wounds but never did he fully recover and it's believed the would-be assassin hastened his death.

"Fear of" assassination is a condition different from being "turned on" by the fear of being assassinated.

A special use was autassassinophilia (in psychiatry, a paraphilia in which an individual is sexually aroused by the risk of being killed) and despite the name, the condition is not restricted to those imagining being assassinated, the paraphilia instead covering all those sexually by the risk of being killed.  It’s a fetish which can overlap with others involving specific ways of finding death (drowning, decapitation, dehydration etc) and does not of necessity require actual risk of death; merely imagining it can be sufficient.  The paraphilia could for example be as specific as being sexually aroused by the thought of being murdered by the Freemasons but that is distinct from a fear of being murdered by the Freemasons (an instance of foniasophobia (fear of being murdered)) which was a condition once suffered by Lindsay Lohan while being stalked by "a schizophrenic Freemason".  The condition was first described by John Money (1921–2006), a New Zealand-born professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins University who listed it as the “reciprocal condition” to erotophonophilia (in which one sexually is aroused by “stage-managing and carrying out the murder of an unsuspecting sexual partner”, both paraphilias under the rubric of the “sacrificial/expiatory type”.  Neither have ever been listed as a separate diagnosis in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) but both, depending on the patient, could variously be “bolted into” the criteria for Sexual Masochism Disorder or Paraphilic Disorder.

Whether in personal, political or family relations, assassination is one of the oldest and, done properly, one of the most effective tools known to man.  The earliest known use in English of the verb "to assassinate" in printed English was by Matthew Sutcliffe (circa 1548-1629) in A Briefe Replie to a Certaine Odious and Slanderous Libel, Lately Published by a Seditious Jesuite (1600), borrowed by William Shakespeare (circa 1564-1616) for Macbeth (1605).  Among the realists, it’s long been advocated, Sun Tzu in the still read The Art of War (circa 500 BC) arguing the utilitarian principle: that a single assassination could be both more effective and less destructive that other methods of dispute resolution, something with which Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), in his political treatise Il Principe (The Prince, written circa 1513 & published 1532), concurred.  As a purely military matter, it’s long been understood that the well-targeted assassination of a single leader can be much more effective than a battlefield encounter whatever the extent of the victory; the “cut the head off the snake” principle.  Idiomatic uses include (1) “great assassin” which sarcastically was in September 1896 bestowed by William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898; prime-minister 1868–1874, 1880–1885, Feb-July 1886 & 1892–1894) on the Ottoman Empire’s Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1842–1918; sultan of the Ottoman Empire 1876-1909) as a dark reference to the massacres of Ottoman Armenians, (2) “smiling assassin” (can be applied literally but is usually a figurative form meaning “one who maintains a friendly and pleasant visage but really is a back-stabber) and (3) “baby-faced assassin” (one whose youthful or innocent appearance belies their ruthless character).

Modern history

The assassination in July 2022 of Abe Shinzō san (安倍 晋三 (Shinzo Abe, 1954-2022, prime minister of Japan 2006-2007 & 2012-2020) came as a surprise because as a part of political conflict, assassination had all but vanished from Japan.  That’s not something which can be said of many countries in the modern era, the death toll in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South & Central America long, the methods of dispatch sometimes gruesome.  Russia’s annals too are blood-soaked although it’s of note perhaps in that an extraordinary number of the killings were ordered by one head of Government.  The toll of US presidents is famous and also documented are some two-dozen planned attempted assassinations.  Even one (as far as is known) prime-minister of the UK has been assassinated, Spencer Perceval (1762–1812; Prime-Minister of the UK 1809-1912) shot dead (apparently by a deranged lone assassin) on 11 May 1812, his other claim to fame that uniquely among British premiers, he served at times also as solicitor-general and attorney-general.  Conspiracy theorists note also the death of Pope John-Paul I (1912–1978; pope Aug-Sep 1978).

Death by katana.

Samuri Ultranationalist activist Otoya Yamaguchi (1943-1960), about to stab Socialist Party leader Inejiro Asanuma san (1898-1960) with his yoroi-dōshi ("armor piercer" or "mail piercer"), a short sword, fashioned with particularly thick metal and suitable for piercing armor and using in close combat; it was carried by the samurai class in feudal Japan.), Hibiya Public Hall, Tokyo, 12 October 1960.  The assassin committed suicide while in custody.

Historically however, political assassinations in Japan were not unknown, documented since the fifth century, the toll including two emperors.  In the centuries which unfolded until the modern era, by European standards, assassinations were not common but the traditions of the Samurai, a military caste which underpinned a feudal society organized as a succession of shogunates (a hereditary military dictatorship (1192–1867)), meant that violence was seen sometimes as the only honorable solution when many political disputes were had their origin in inter and intra-family conflict.  Tellingly, even after firearms came into use, most assassinations continued to be committed with swords or other bladed-weapons, a tradition carried on when the politician Asanuma Inejirō san was killed on live television in 1960.

Most remembered however is the cluster of deaths which political figures in Japan suffered during the dark decade of the 1930s.  It was a troubled time and although Hara Takashi san (1856-1921; Prime Minister of Japan 1918-1921) had in 1921 been murdered by a right-wing malcontent (who received a sentence of only three years), it had seemed at the time an aberration and few expected the next decade to assume the direction it followed.  However in an era in which the most fundamental aspects of the nation came to be contested by the politicians, the imperial courtiers, the navy and the army (two institutions with different priorities and intentions), all claiming to be acting in the name of the emperor, conflict was inevitable, the only thing uncertain was how things would be resolved.

Hamaguchi Osachi san (1870–1931; Prime Minister of Japan 1929-1931) was so devoted to the nation that when appointed head of the government’s Tobacco Monopoly Bureau, he took up smoking despite his doctors warnings it would harm his fragile health.  His devotion was praised but he was overtaken by events, the Depression crushing the economy and his advocacy of peace and adherence to the naval treaty which limited Japan’s ability to project power made him a target for the resurgent nationalists.  In November 1930 he was shot while in Tokyo Railway station, surviving a few months before succumbing an act which inspired others.  In 1932 the nation learned of the Ketsumeidan Jiken (the "League of Blood" or "Blood-Pledge Corps Incident"), a nationalist conspiracy to assassinate liberal politicians and the wealthy donors who supported them.  A list on twenty-two intended victims was later discovered but the group succeeded only in killing one former politician and one businessman.

The death of Inukai Tsuyoshi san (1855–1932; Prime Minister of Japan 1931-1932) was an indication of what was to follow.  A skilled politician and something of a technocrat, he’d stabilized the economy but he abhorred war as a ghastly business and opposed army’s ideas of adventures in China, something increasingly out of step with those gathering around his government.  In May 1932, after visiting the Yasukuni Shrine to pay homage to the Meiji’s first minister of war (assassinated in 1869), nine navy officers went to the prime-minister’s office and shot him dead.  Deed done, the nine handed themselves to the police.  At their trial, there was much sympathy and they received only light sentences (later commuted) although some fellow officers feared they may be harshly treated and sent to the government a package containing their nine amputated fingers with offers to take the place of the accused were they sentenced to death.  In the way the Japanese remember such things, it came to be known as “the May 15 incident”.

Nor was the military spared.  Yoshinori Shirakawa san (1869–1932) and Tetsuzan Nagata san (1884–1935), both generals in the Imperial Japanese Army were assassinated, the latter one of better known victims of the Aizawa Incident of August 1935, a messy business in which two of the three army factions then existing resolved their dispute with murder.  Such was the scandal that the minister of army was also a victim but he got of lightly; being ordered to resign “until the fuss dies down” and returning briefly to serve as prime-minister in 1937 before dying of natural cause some four years later.

Lindsay Lohan as assassin nun in Machete (2010).  The revolver is a Smith & Wesson .50 Magnum with 8.38" barrel (S&W500: SKU 163501).

All of the pressures which had been building to create the political hothouse that was mid-1930s Japan were realized in Ni Ni-Roku Jiken (the February 26 incident), an attempted military coup d'état in which fanatical young officers attempted to purge the government and military high command of factional rivals and ideological opponents (along with, as is inevitable in these things, settling a few personal scores).  Two victims were Viscount Takahashi Korekiyo san (1854–1936; Prime Minister 1921-1922) and Viscount Saitō Makoto san (1858–1936; admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy & prime-minister 1932-1934 (and the last former Japanese Prime Minister to be assassinated until Shinzo Abe san in 2022)).  As a coup, it was a well-drilled operation, separate squads sent out at 2am to execute their designated victims although, in Japanese tradition, they tried not to offend, one assassin recorded as apologizing to terrified household staff for “the annoyance I have caused”.  Of the seven targets the rebels identified, only three were killed but the coup failed not because not enough blood was spilled but because the conspirators made the same mistake as the Valkyrie plotters (who sought in 1944 to overthrow Germany’s Nazi regime (1933-1945)); they didn’t secure control of the institutions which were the vital organs of state and notably, did not seize the Imperial Palace and thus place between themselves between the Emperor and his troops, something they could have learned from Hernán Cortés (1485–1547) who made clear to his Spanish Conquistadors that the capture of Moctezuma (Montezuma, circa 1466-1520; Emperor of the Aztec Empire circa 1502-1520) was their object.  As it was, the commander in chief ordered the army to suppress the rebellion and within hours it was over.

However, the coup had profound consequences.  If Japan’s path to war had not been guaranteed before the insurrection, after it the impetus assumed its own inertia and the dynamic shifted from one of militarists against pacifists to agonizing appraisals of whether the first thrust of any attack would be to the south, against the USSR or into the Pacific.  The emperor had displayed a decisiveness he’d not re-discover until two atomic bombs had been dropped on his country but, seemingly convinced there was no guarantee the army would put down a second coup, his policy became one of conciliating the military which was anyway the great beneficiary of the February 26 incident; unified after the rebels were purged, it quickly asserted control over the government, weakened by the death of its prominent liberals and the reluctance of others to challenge the army, assassination a salutatory lesson.

Assassins both:  David Low’s (1891-1963) Rendezvous, Evening Standard, 20 September 1939. 

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (usually styled as the Nazi-Soviet Pact), was a treaty of non-aggression between the USSR and Nazi Germany and signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939.  A political sensation when it was announced, it wouldn't be until the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) that the Western powers became aware of the details of the suspected secret protocol under which the signatories partitioned Poland between them.   Low's cartoon was published shortly after the Soviets (on 17 September) invaded from the east, having delayed military action until convinced German success was assured.

Low's work satirizes the cynicism of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) and comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) bowing politely, words revealing their true feelings.  After returning to Berlin from the signing ceremony, Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945) reported the happy atmosphere to Hitler as "…like being among comrades" but if he was fooled, comrade Stalin remained the realist.  When Ribbentrop proposed a rather effusive communiqué of friendship and a 25 year pact, the Soviet leader suggested that after so many years of "...us tipping buckets of shit over each-other", a ten year agreement announced in more business-like terms might seem to the peoples of both nations, rather more plausible.  It was one of a few occasions on which comrade Stalin implicitly admitted even a dictator needs to take note of public opinion.  His realism served him less well when he assumed no rational man fighting a war against a formidable enemy would by choice open another front of 3000-odd kilometres (1850 miles) against an army which could raise 500 divisions.  Other realists would later apply their own calculations and conclude that however loud the clatter of sabre rattling, Mr Putin (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) would never invade Ukraine.

Cloak and axe of Giovanni Battista Bugatti (1779–1869), official executioner for the Papal States 1796-1864, Criminology Museum of Rome.

Woodcuts and other depictions from the era suggest the blood-red cloak wasn't always worn during executions.  At various points popes have hired assassins to do the Lord’s work (and many more have been contracted “on behalf of His Holiness (both with and without his knowledge) but (as far as is known), none have been on the payroll for at least two centuries.  The last executioner employed was Giovanni Battista Bugatti began his career at a youthful 17 under Pius VI (1717–1799; pope 1775-1799) and diligently he served six pontiffs before being pensioned off by Pius IX (1792–1878; pope 1846-1878).  His retirement induced not by the Holy See losing enthusiasm for the death penalty because one Antonio Balducci succeeded him in the office which fell into disuse only with the loss of the Papal States (756-1870; a conglomeration of territories in the central & northern Italian peninsula under the personal sovereignty of the pope), after the unification of Italy.  Unlike his illustrious predecessor, history has recorded little about Signor Balducci although it’s known he performed his final execution in 1870.  Signor Bugatti was by far the longest-serving of the Papal States’ many executioners and locals dubbed him Mastro Titta, a titular corruption of maestro di giustizia (master of justice) and his 69 year tenure in his unusual role can be accounted for only by either (1) he felt dispatching the condemned a calling or (2) he really enjoyed his work, because his employers were most parsimonious: he received no retainer and only a small fee per commission (although he was granted a small, official residence).  His tenure was long and included 516 victims (he preferred to call them pazienti (patients), the term adopted also by Romans who enjoyed the darkly humorous) but was only ever a part-time gig; most of his income came from his work as an umbrella painter (a part of the labour market which still exists in an artisan niche).  Depending on this and that, his devices included the axe, guillotine, noose and mallet(!) while the offences punished ranged from the serious (murder, conspiracy, sedition etc) to the petty (habitual thieves and trouble-makers).

Cardinal Pietro Gasparri (1852–1934; Cardinal Secretary of State 1914-1930, left) and Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943, right), signing the Lateran Treaty, Lateran Palace, Rome, 11 February 1929.

Although as early as 1786 the Grand Duchy of Tuscany became the first Italian state to abolish the death penalty (torture also banned), the sentence remained on the books in the Papal States; then as now, the poor disproportionately were victims of the sanction, similar (or worse) crimes by the bourgeoisie or nobility usually handled with less severity, “hushed-up” or just ignored.  With the loss of the Papal States, the pope’s temporal domain shrunk to little more than what lay around St Peter’s Square; indeed between 1870 and the signing of Lateran Treaty (1929) after which the Italian state recognized Vatican City as a sovereign state, no pope left the Vatican, their status as self-imposed prisoners a political gesture.  The Lateran treaty acknowledged the validity of the sentence (Article 8 of the 1929 Vatican City Penal Code stating anyone who attempted to assassinate the pope would be subject to the death penalty) although this provision was never used, tempted though some popes must have been.  Paul VI (1897-1978; pope 1963-1978) in 1969 struck capital punishment from the Vatican's legal code and the last reference to the sanction vanished in 2001 under Saint John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005).

In contemporary Russia, such is the volume of deceased prominent citizens with a cause of death reported as: “Falling from window of high building” the mode of death is known on the streets as the “oligarch elevator”; predating even the Tsarist state, grim humor has a long tradition in Russia.  It may thus be assumed the Kremlin has on the books at least one “state assassin” but there may be more because there’s only so much one assassin or assassinatrix can do and the workload clearly is heavy.  Of other nations, there are the “usual suspects” assumed also to have such a contractor (although the DPRK (Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea)) seems also on occasion to outsource “jobs” in a most imaginative way) and these positions are not advertised, appointees doubtlessly selected for their demonstrated skills.  Whether in the West there are still many state assassins isn’t known although in the not too distant past the activities of some have been documented.

Fidel Castro enjoying a fine Havana cigar.  At 90, he died in his bed.

The most interesting example is the US but the answer to the question of whether Washington DC still “does assassinations” ultimately is: “Well, it depends how one defines ‘assassination’”.  Unambiguously, US administrations certainly did assassinate tiresome people and documents relating to some of the plots made good reading, especially the “exploding cigars” with which the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) planned to kill Fidel Castro (1926–2016; prime-minister or president of Cuba 1959-2008).  The conduct of Richard Nixon’s (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) administration weakened the authority of the executive and US Congress in the mid-1970s took steps to prohibit unlawful assassinations by government agencies, this prompted by revelations about the CIA’s involvement in plots to assassinate foreign leaders.  In response to the congressional nudge, Gerald Ford (1913–2006; US president 1974-1977) in 1976 issued Executive Order (EO) 11905, explicitly prohibiting political assassinations by US government personnel: “No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.”  This was later reaffirmed and expanded by Jimmy Carter’s (b 1924; US President 1977-1981) EO 12036 (1978) and Ronald Reagan’s (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) EO 12333 which in 1981 sought to close the “outsourcing” loophole with the words: “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.”  Despite the impression which seems afoot, Congress never passed a law banning assassinations and while EO 12333 remains active and binding on the executive branch it can, at the stroke of a pen, be amended or revoked by any POTUS (President of the United States).

So scope exists for an imaginative POTUS to act and the obvious device is a new EO.  While most EOs are published (gazetted) in the Federal Register and are thus publicly available, if a POTUS issues a certificate classifying an EO as being related to national security, they can be unpublished and their existence not even disclosed, meaning any change in an administration’s interpretation of the restriction (or even the word “assassination”) can remain unknown outside a small circle.  As the words are presumed still to be operative include: “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the US Government...” that would include the military, CIA personnel and many others but there are certain legal and operational ambiguities including:

(1) The targeted killing of enemy combatants during armed conflict: The phrase “armed conflict” is significant because the US last declared war on another country in 1942, despite which, they’ve hardly been militarily inactive since.  What is means is that “armed conflict” has proved pleasingly flexible and of great utility in the age of drone strikes which has allowed the US precisely to target individuals, something justified subsequently as “self-defense”.

(2) Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMFs): In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the AUMF (2001) gives administrations broad powers to target individuals linked to 9/11 (or “associated groups”) and much use of the term “associated groups” has since been made as a legal justification for drone strikes in a number of countries.

(3) Covert Activities vs Military Operations: Covert operations by the CIA (or any other organ) require a “Presidential Finding” and a formal notification to the congressional intelligence committees (a legacy of the restrictions imposed during the 1970s) while the military are not subject to the same degree of oversight though are covered by the rules of war (the Geneva Conventions, the implications of the finding of the Nuremberg tribunals etc).

(4) The psychological effect of the UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, commonly called "drone"): From a legal standpoint, the use of drones to kill people really added no new factors but in the political and public mind they seemed a “game changer” and with each high-profile “hit” there’s usually an intense (if brief) debate, an example of which followed the 2020 killing of Lieutenant General Qasem Soleimani (1957-2020) of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).  As was usually the case, the “debate” was formulaic, the administration claiming a military act of self-defense while critics labeled it a political assassination.  After both sides let off some steam, life returned to business as usual.

While not something often discussed by the administration, the DoD (Department of Defense) does have a (sort of) codified doctrine in their War Manual (last updated in 2015 with the title retained despite no declarations of war since 1942 and there having been no secretary of defense in cabinet since 1947).  While DoD avoids reducing things to a single definition, it does distinguish between “assassination” and “lawful targeting”: “The term assassination has been interpreted to mean an unlawful killing of a specific individual for political or ideological reasons”, to which is added: “The lawful targeting of an enemy combatant is not assassination.”  What that would appear to imply is (1) killing enemy combatants or terrorist leaders during an armed conflict or in self-defense is not considered assassination and (2) killing a civilian political leader, or someone not engaged in hostilities, especially outside armed conflict may constitute an assassination.  Presumably, being an army officer (albeit not one on a battlefield (in the conventional sense of the word)) General Soleimani would be defined “an enemy combatant”.  Some deaths since have been rather more in the realm of a “gray area” but the strikes continue.

Mike Pompeo before & after.

Mr Pompeo told interviewers he had in six months achieved a 90 lb (41 kg) weight loss through rigorous adherence to a D&E (diet & exercise) schedule.  It was an impressive outcome but in the Ozempic age, some were sceptical, suspecting there may have been surgical or chemical assistance.  Being a politician does have the general effect of generating an air of doubt about their assertions and those accessing the likelihood of truthfulness have to weigh up variables like "possible", "plausible" and "unbelievable".  Generously, what Mr Pompeo claimed was "plausible" and a 90 lb shred, however done, a reasonable achievement.

One who seemed anxious to explore gray areas was Mike Pompeo (b 1963; director of the CIA 2017-2018 and US secretary of state 2018-2021).  Although an evangelical Christian, one-time church deacon and Sunday school teacher on the record as saying “…politics is a never-ending struggle... until the Rapture.”, Mr Pompeo seems to believe the sixth commandment is open to interpretation.  While General Soleimani was a military figure, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (b 1971) unambiguously was a civilian and one with no position in any government or Quango.  Despite that, Mr Pompeo was reported as have requested “options” which would provide a legal justification for killing Assange, his interest prompted by WikiLeaks’ publication of details of the CIA’s “Vault 7” hacking tools, said by the agency to be its worst ever data loss.  The possibilities Mr Pompeo could have been offered apparently included both abduction and assassination and Mr Pompeo, a trained lawyer, had in 2017 laid the groundwork for a bit of escalation, describing WikiLeaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service”, a term thought to be a declaration of his intent rather than a formal step up a rung on the ladder of legal possibility.  As things turned out, politics triumphed and a deal was done whereby Mr Assange pleaded guilty to something and was set free.