Massacre

Massacre (pronounced mas-uh-ker)

(1) The unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings or animals, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder.

(2) A general slaughter, as of persons or animals:

(3) In informal use, a crushing defeat, especially in sports.

(4) In the slang of political discourse, referring to the sudden dismissal of a number of people from office or a large electoral defeat.

1575–1585: From the Middle French massacre, noun derivative of massacrer, from the Old French maçacrer & macecler (slaughterhouse; butchery, slaughter), probably from the unattested Vulgar Latin matteūcculāre, a verbal derivative of the unattested matteūca (mallet) from the Middle French massacrer.  The Latin link is better described as speculative, the ultimate origin possible macellum (provisions store, butcher shop), probably related to mactāre (to kill, slaughter).  Confusingly, there’s also the Latin mazacrium (massacre, slaughter, killing), used also to describe “the head of a newly killed stag”.  The Middle Low German was matskelen (to massacre), the German is metzeln, (massacre), frequentative of matsken & matzgen (to cut, hew), from the Proto-West Germanic maitan, from the Proto-Germanic maitaną (to cut), from the Primitive Indo-European mei- (small).  It was akin to the Old High German meizan (to cut) and in the Arabic مَجْزَرَة‎ (majzara) was originally a “spot where animals are slaughtered” which now means also “massacre” and in Maghrebi Arabic “slaughterhouse”.   The source for both was جَزَرَ‎ (jazara) (to cut, slaughter).

The familiar meaning "to kill many indiscriminately” dates from the 1580s, commonly in reference to those who are not in a condition to defend themselves but by the mid-seventeenth century, it was used also to suggest "to murder cruelly" even if there was but a single victim.  Both uses persist to this day.  Massacre is both noun & verb, massacrer a now rare noun and massacred is an adjective.

The Saturday Night Massacre, 20 October 1973

The Saturday Night Massacre is a term coined to describe the events of 20 October 1973 when US President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) ordered the sacking of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox (1912-2004), then investigating the Watergate scandal.  In addition to Cox, that evening saw also the departure of Attorney General Elliot Richardson (1920-1999) and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus (1932-2019).  Richardson had appointed Cox in May, fulfilling an undertaking to the House Judiciary Committee that a special prosecutor would investigate the events surrounding the break-in of the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) offices at the Watergate Hotel in 1972.  The appointment was made under the ex-officio authority of the attorney general who could remove the special prosecutor only for extraordinary and reprehensible conduct.  Cox soon issued a demand that Nixon hand over copies of taped conversations recorded in the Oval Office; the president refused to comply and by Friday, a stalemate existed between White House and Department of Justice and all Washington assumed there would be a break in the legal maneuvering while the town closed-down for the weekend.

Before the massacre.  Attorney-General Elliot Richardson, President Richard Nixon and FBI Director-Designate Clarence Kelly (1911-1997).

However, on Saturday, Nixon ordered Richardson to fire Cox.  Richardson refused and resigned in protest. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox.  Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned.  Nixon then ordered Solicitor General Robert Bork (1927-2012), as acting head of the Justice Department, to fire Cox; while both Richardson and Ruckelshaus had given personal assurances to congressional committees they would not interfere, Bork had not.  Brought to the White House by a black Cadillac limousine and sworn in as acting attorney-general, Bork wrote the letter firing Cox.  That completed the Saturday Night Massacre.  Perhaps the most memorable coda to the affair was Richardson’s memorable resignation address.

Within a week of the Saturday Night Massacre, resolutions of impeachment against the president were introduced in Congress although the House Judiciary Committee did not approve its first article of impeachment until 27 July the following year when it charged Nixon with obstruction of justice.  Nixon resigned less than two weeks later, on 8 August 1974.

Anniversary

 Anniversary (pronounced an-uh-vur-suh-ree)

(1) The yearly recurrence of the date of a past event.

(2) The celebration or commemoration of such a date.

(3) Returning or recurring each year; annual.

1200–1250: From the Middle English anniversarie from the Anglo-French and Medieval Latin anniversāria (anniversary (day)) & anniversārius (recurring yearly), the construct being anni (combining form of annus year) + vers(us) (turned), past participle of vertere (vert (turn) + tus (past participle suffix) + ārius or ary.  In Latin, the word was used especially of the day of a person's death but as first an adjective and later a noun, came to be used in Church Latin as anniversaria (dies) in reference to saints' days.  An Old English word for anniversary (as a noun) was mynddæg which translates literally as "mind-day".  Anniversary & anniversarian are nouns and anniversarily is an (archaic) adverb; the noun plural is anniversaries (the Latin anniversaria occasionally seen).

One of pop culture's more celebrated anniversaries is Mean Girls Day on 3 October, the origin of which is that it's the only date mentioned in the 2004 film although it has no specific relevance and could have been any date which fitted in with the weather.  Besides Mean Girls Day, other notable anniversaries on 3 October include: In 1929, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was renamed Jugoslavija (Yugoslavia).  In 1932, the Kingdom of Iraq was granted independence by the UK.  In 1935, Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943) invaded Ethiopia (the Second Italo-Abyssinian War); it was Europe’s last old-style colonial adventure and one which even then looked anachronistic.  In 1952, the UK tested its first A-Bomb, becoming the third nuclear power; H-Bombs would soon follow.  In 1990, the GDR (the German Democratic Republic, the old East Germany) was dissolved and absorbed by the FRG (the Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany), marking the formal origin of the modern, unified German state, celebrated by most as German Unity Day and noted by others (then and now) with some regret.

In literature, probably the best known is Bloomsday, a reference to 16 June, a day (in 1904) in the life of Leopold Bloom, the protagonist in the novel Ulysses by James Joyce (1882–1941).  Although Bloomsday is centred usually on gatherings featuring readings from the book, the events also often commemorate other aspects of the author's life and are sometimes integrated with academic conferences or literary festivals.  Political and military anniversaries are often marked and can be celebrated even if the original was a defeat; it's all about the context of history and some have been misused by those with their own agendas to pursue.  Almost always, these events have a specific date but sometimes the day cannot be mentioned because of "political sensitivities".

In the early evening of 3 June 1989, in the culmination of some three weeks of mainly student-led protests directed at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), martial law was declared and armed troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were assigned to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square where the protests were centred.  What followed a few hours later on 4 June has come variously to be known as the “Tiananmen Square Incident” or “Tiananmen Square Massacre” (the CCP preferring “June Fourth Incident”, the same convention of use the Japanese government adopted in the 1930s when speaking of some of their conduct in China) and although there’s broad consensus about what happened when the soldiers opened fire with automatic weapons (sometimes from tanks and other armored vehicles), the extent remains contested with estimates of the death toll ranging from low-three to high-four figures.  There were at least several hundred thousand protesters in Tiananmen Square at the time of the incident so all estimates are plausible but the photographic evidence from the time is so fragmentary that verification has never been possible.

The traditional annual flowerbed in Tiananmen Square which is part of a "national celebration day" (officially the National Day of the People's Republic of China), marking the foundation of the republic on 3 October 1949.

Such is the sensitivity within the CCP that its impressive digital surveillance of the population has reacted quickly to attempts to circumvent attempts to evade the proscription of references such as “4 June”, “June 4”, “fourth of June” etc.  Because the filters are inherently text & character based this was historically usually just a matter of updating the database of “suspect terms”, done usually in reaction to emerging patterns of use but also sometimes anticipated.  Attempts on Chinese social media to evade the censor’s eye included (1) using fragments of some more obscure foreign languages, (2) using emojis which possess some degree of ambiguity, (3) using Pinyin (the Romanization of Chinese characters), (4) using coded phrases or metaphors to allude to the event, some of which may be understood only within a sub-set of users and (5) the use of numeric references such as “65-1”, “63+1” or “May 35^th”.

Little of this digital subterfuge proved much of an obstacle to the CCP surveillance machine and the regime’s enthusiastic embrace of AI (artificial intelligence) meant that even embedding messaging in imagery or music with no direct mention or even reference to the event or the date can now easily be assessed.  Western analysts note however there’s little to suggest the CCP has an especially large task in countering on-line discussion of the “June Fourth Incident”, other than in places like Hong Kong where malcontents and trouble-makers are known still to exist.  The CCP allows well-behaved Chinese citizen (ie those with a good “social credit” score) to holiday in the West and probably assumes (presumably correctly) that they spend their time taking selfies in front of the Eiffel Town or Trevi Fountain rather than sitting in darkened hotel rooms using the novelty of Google to search for “Tiananmen Square Massacre”.  Indeed, Western political scientists suspect there’s wide knowledge among the population about there being a massacre on 4 June (although not the detail) and for the CCP this is a desirable thing for Chinese citizens to keep in the back of their minds.  Like “something nasty in the woodshed” it’s there to be avoided and not discussed.

Some names for anniversaries      

1        Annual
2        Biennial
3        Triennial
4        Quadrennial
5        Quinquennial
6        Sexennial
7        Septennial
8        Octennial
9        Novennial
10      Decennial
11      Undecennial
12      Duodecennial
13      Tredecennial
14      Quattuordecennial
15      Quindecennial
20      Vigintennial or Vicennial
25      Quadranscentennial
40      Quadragennial
50      Semicentennial or Quinquagenary
60      Sexagennial 
65      Sexagenary
70      Septuagennial
100    Centennial or Centenary
125    Quasquicentennial
150    Sesquicentennial
175    Dodransbicentennial
200    Bicentennial
250    Sestercentennial
300    Tercentenary or Tricentenary
350    Sesquarcentennial
400    Quadricentennial
500    Quincentenary
600    Sexcentenary
700    Septcentennial
800    Octocentenary
900    Nonacentennial
1000  Millennial
1500  Sesquimillennial
2000  Bimillennial

Pogrom

Pogrom (pronounced puh-gruhm, puh-grom, poh-gruhm or poh-grom)

An organized persecution or massacre of a defined (usually ethnic or religious) group, historically and originally applied especially to attacks on the Jews.

1882: From the Yiddish פּאָגראָם‎ (pogrom) (organized massacre in Russia against a particular class or people, especially the Jews), from the Russian погро́м (pogróm & pogromu (devastation, destruction) the construct being по (po) (by, through, behind, after) (cognate with the Latin post) +‎ громи́ть (gromu or gromít) (thunder, roar; to smash, to sack; to destroy, devastate) from the primitive Indo-European imitative root ghrem (which endures in Modern English as grim).  The Russian derivatives are погро́мщик (pogrómščik) and погро́мщица (pogrómščica).  The literal translation of the Russian pogróm is destruction, devastation (of a town, country, as might happen in a war) and it’s the noun derivative of pogromít; po is the perfective prefix and gromít (to destroy, devastate) is a derivative of grom (thunder).

For historic reasons, should perhaps be Jewish-specific

Although etymologists note the word pogrom has increasingly been used to refer to any persecution instigated by a government or dominant class against a minority group, its origin lies in organized attacks on the Jews and, for historic reasons, pogrom perhaps should be used only in this context.

Although mob attacks on Jews, organized and spontaneous, have been documented for thousands of years, pogrom is a Yiddish variation on a Russian word meaning "thunder" and entered the English language to describe nineteenth and twentieth century attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire, similar attacks against Jews at other times and places retrospectively becoming known as pogroms.  An important technical distinction emerged in the discussions which produced the four articles of indictment ((1) planning aggressive war, (2) waging aggressive war (the two collective the core crime of aggression), (3) war crimes and (4) crimes against humanity) which became the basis of the Nuremberg trials in 1946-1947.  While it was clear an event such as 1938’s Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass), in which dozens of Jews were killed, was a pogrom in the historical sense, the holocaust which followed between 1941-1945 was so monstrous a crime and on such a scale that another word was required and thus was created genocide.

In the years since, the definitional aspects of these matters have become a macabre exercise for lawyers required to prosecute or defend those accused of mass-murder.  In the last quarter-century, deciding what to do about what was done in places like Rwanda, the Congo, Darfur, the former Yugoslavia and Burma (Myanmar) required courts to decide whether to treat the events as vigilantism, terrorism, massacres, genocide, war, pogroms or the more recent descriptor, ethnic cleansing.

Promotional poster by Josef Fenneker (1895-1956) for the German silent film Pogrom (1919), written and directed by Austrian Alfred Halm (1861-1951) and distributed by Berliner Film-Manufaktur GmbH.

Shibboleth

Shibboleth (pronounced shib-uh-lith or shib-uh-leth)

(1) A belief, principle, or practice which is commonly adhered to but which is thought by some people to be inappropriate or out of date.

(2) A custom, phrase, or use of language that acts as a test of belonging to, or as a stumbling block to becoming a member of, a particular social class, profession etc.

(3) A slogan; catchword.

Circa 1300s: From the Hebrew שִׁבֹּלֶת (shibbólet) (ear of grain (the part of a plant containing grain, such as the head of a stalk of wheat or rye) (and more rarely "stream, flood or torrent")).  The word was used as a password by the Gileadites as a test to detect the fleeing Ephraimites, who could not pronounce the sound sh (Judges 12:4–6).  From this emerged by the 1630s the figurative sense of "watchword", the additional meaning "outmoded slogan still adhered to" noted by 1862.

The Ephraimites and the Gileadites

The story behind the word is in the Old Testament’s Book of Judges (12:1-15).  In ancient Hebrew, shibboleth translated literally as “ear of grain” (stream, flood or torrent in some translations), some groups pronouncing it with a "sh" sound, but speakers of related dialects pronounced it with a hard s.

In the story, two Semitic tribes, the Ephraimites and the Gileadites, fight a great battle.  The Gileadites defeat the Ephraimites, and set up a blockade across the Jordan River to catch the fleeing Ephraimites who were trying to get back to their territory.  The sentries asked each person who wanted to cross the river to say the word shibboleth. The Ephraimites, who had no "sh" sound in their language, pronounced the word with a hard s and were thereby unmasked as the enemy and slaughtered.

12:4 Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites.

12:5 And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, art thou an Ephraimite? If he say Nay;

12:6 Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

As a technique to identify foreigners, the use may have predated  the biblical tale of the Gileadites and Ephraimites and there are many instances in history.  The Italians used the test-word cicera (chick pease) to identify the French during the massacre called the Sicilian Vespers (1282).  

1941 Chrysler New Yorker Three Passenger Coupe.

During WWII, while conducting training exercises on Pavuvu and Guadalcanal, the Marines improved battlefield security not with a password, but by an identification procedure described as "sign and countersign", the technique being sequentially to interrogate an unknown friend or foe with the name of an automobile which required the "L" sound in vocalization.  The response was required to be a cognomen for another automobile uttered in the same manner and in an accent definitely American; those who answered call out "Chryswer" or "Cadiwac" likely to be shot.

A loaf of Ukranian palyanitsa.

The ancient use of a shibboleth to allow the detection of enemies within was revived in 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Ukrainians, if suspecting someone might be a Russian, challenge them to say the word “palyanitsa”, a soft wheat bread with a crispy crust, natives of the two nations pronouncing it differently and it's said to be difficult for Russians to master the Ukrainian form. 

Erase

Erase (pronounced ih-reys)

(1) To rub or scrape out, as letters or characters written, engraved etc; efface.

(2) Completely to eliminate.

(3) To remove material recorded on magnetic tape or magnetic disk; synonymous for most purposes in this context with delete although technically, in computing, an erasure is the substitution of data with characters representing a null value whereas a deletion is the removal of an pointer entry in an index.

1595–1605: From the Middle English arasen & aracen (to eradicate, remove), from the Latin ērāsus, past participle of ērādere (scrape out, scrape off, shave, abolish, remove, to abrade), the construct being ex (out of) + radere (to scratch, scrape).  The use in the context of data on magnetic storage media (tapes, disks) dates from 1945, the technical distinction between erase and delete defined in computer science theory as early as 1947 though, to this day, the distinction escapes most users.  The adjective erasable dates from 1829.  Eraser (thing that erases writing) is attested from 1790, an invention of American English, agent noun from erase.  Originally, the product was a knife with which to scraping off ink, the first rubber devices for removing pencil marks not available until from 1858.

Erasure, Comrade Stalin and Lindsay Lohan

Evil dictators (like those running beach clubs or Greek islands) have their problems too and they like them to go away.  Where problems exist, they like them to be erased or is some other way to disappear.  Sometimes, the technical term is “unpersoned”.

The Erased

Not best pleased at images of the pleasingly pneumatic Karolina Palazi appearing on the official Lohan Beach Club Mykonos Beach Club Instagram account, Lindsay Lohan quickly responded with a post demanding her staff “Erase this random person at my beach”.  In the digital age, it can be difficult entirely to erase anything which appears on the internet and probably impossible for anything distributed on the big-data social media platforms.  That said, there is unpredictability to the fate of anything ever on-line.  There is (1) material which genuinely vanishes forever, (2) stuff which proves impossible to eradicate despite best efforts, and (3) things which were thought lost, only to re-appear.  Noted for some time, the issue will be of increasing interest in the future, the internet being a distributed system with no centralised repository indicating what is held where, by whom and whether it is accessible (by someone) on or off-line or in storage.

The Disappeared

General Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006; military dictator of Chile 1973-1990).

This is the relatively new name for the centuries-old practice of secretly kidnapping or arresting people, then imprisoning or killing them, all without due process of law.  It’s most associated with the late twentieth-century military dictatorships in Chile, Argentina and Brazil but is used to describe the practice in many South and Central American republics and of late, others, sometimes at scale.  Although the practice probably pre-dates even modern humans, the word, in this context appears first to have been used by Joseph Heller (1923–1999) in the satirical Catch-22 (1961) when describing how the US military dealt with malcontents.  However it’s done, the person disappears without trace.

The Unpersoned

Unpersoning wasn’t invented in the Soviet Union but it was under comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) it was undertaken at scale, although, like later attempts on the internet, the process wasn’t always perfect because it was performed on extant physical material, some of which inevitably escaped attention.  The process interested critics in the West; in George Orwell's (1903–1950), dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), protagonist Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth where his job is to alter historical records to conform to the state's ever-changing version of history.  Done in the USSR mostly between 1928-1953, unpersoning was the physical modification of existing text and imagery, modified to erase from history those who had fallen from favor and it’s thought the most extensively unpersoned figure in the USSR was comrade Leon Trotsky (1879-1940).  Comrade Stalin had him murdered in Mexico, the assassin's choice of weapon an ice axe.

Erased from history: Before & after being unpersoned, Comrades Molotov (1890-1986) & Stalin with Comrade Nikolai Yezhov (1895-1940), head of the NKVD (one of the predecessors of the KGB); Comrade Stalin had him shot.

In the Soviet Union, the process was essentially as Orwell described and even in the age of digital editing it's probably often still done in a similar manner.  A photograph would be passed to the party's technicians with the comrade(s) to be unpersoned marked in some obvious way, the preferred technique apparently a black crayon.

Succeeding where others failed: Erasing crooked Hillary Clinton

The White House situation room, 2 May 2011 (official WH photo; left) and as depicted in Di Tzeitung (right).

Unpersoning can also be sex-specific (gender-based the currently preferred term).  In May 2011, the Orthodox Jewish news paper Di Tzeitung (a Brooklyn-based weekly) was forced to apologize after unpersoning the women in the photograph released by the White House showing President Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) and his staff monitoring the raid by US Navy Seals in which Osama bin Laden (1957-2011) was killed while in his Pakistani compound.  Unpersoned were then counterterrorism director, Audrey Tomason (b circa 1977) and then secretary of state, crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013).  Di Tzeitung's subsequent apologia was somewhat nuanced.  The publication reiterated it did not publish images of women and thus sent its “regrets and apologies” to the White House and the State Department, not because it had unpersoned women but because their photo editor had not read the “fine print” in the text issued by the White House (which accompanied the photograph) which forbid any changes.  Di Tzeitung further explained it has a “long standing editorial policy” of not publishing images of women because its readers “believe that women should be appreciated for who they are and what they do, not for what they look like and the Jewish laws of modesty are an expression of respect for women, not the opposite”.  They added that Di Tzeitung regarded crooked Hillary Clinton (a former US senator (Democrat) for New York who secured overwhelming majorities in the Orthodox Jewish communities) highly and “appreciated her unique capabilities, talents and compassion for all”.  It concluded by acknowledging it “should not have published the altered picture”.  Commentators noted the practice is not unusual in some ultra-Orthodox Jewish publications which regard depictions of the female form as “immodest”.  Neither the White House nor the State Department responded to the apology although there were cynics who wondered if the president wished it were that easy to get rid of crooked Hillary.

The Watergate tapes and the erased 18½ minutes

Looking over his shoulder: Richard Nixon and HR Halderman in the White House.

Tapes, audio and video, have played a part in many political downfalls but none is more famous than the “smoking gun” tape which compelled the resignation of Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) after it revealed he was involved in the attempt to cover-up the involvement in the Watergate break-in of some connected to his administration.  Recording conversations in the White House had been going on for years and Nixon initially had the equipment removed, the apparatus re-installed two years later after it was found there was no other way to ensure an accurate record of discussions was maintained.  Few outside a handful of the president’s inner circle knew of the tapes and they became public knowledge only in mid-1973 when, under oath before a congressional hearing, a White House official confirmed their existence.  That was the point at which Nixon should have destroyed the tapes and for the rest of his life he must sometimes have reflected that but for that mistake, his presidency might have survived because, although by then the Watergate scandal had been a destabilizing distraction, there was at that point no “smoking gun”, nothing which linked Nixon himself to any wrongdoing.  As it was, he didn’t and within days subpoenas were served on the White House demanding the tapes and that made them evidence; the moment for destruction had passed.  Nixon resisted the subpoenas, claiming executive privilege and thus ensued the tussle between the White House and Watergate affair prosecutors which would see the “Saturday Night Massacre” during which two attorneys-general were fired, the matter ultimately brought before the US Supreme Court which ruled against the president.  Finally, the subpoenaed tapes were surrendered on 5 August 1973, the “smoking gun” tape revealing Nixon and his chief of staff (HR Haldeman, 1926–1993; White House chief of staff 1969-1973) discussing a cover-up plan and at that point, political support in the congress began to evaporate and the president was advised that impeachment was certain and even Republican senators would vote to convict.  On 8 August, Nixon announced his resignation, leaving office the next day.

Uher 5000 reel-to-reel tape recorder used by a White House secretary to create the tape (20 June 1972) with the 18½ minute gap.  (Government Exhibit #60: Records of District Courts of the United States, Record Group 21. National Archives Identifier: 595593).

To this day, mystery surrounds one tape in particular, a recording of a discussion between Nixon and Halderman on 20 June 1972, three days after the Watergate break-in.  Of obviously great interest, when reviewed, there was found to be a gap of 18½ minutes, the explanations offered of how, why or by whom the erasure was effected ranging from the humorously accidental to the darkly conspiratorial but half a century on, it remains a mystery.  Taking advantage of new data-recovery technology, the US government did in subsequent decades make several attempts to “un-delete” the gap but without success and it may be, given the nature of magnetic tape, that there is literally nothing left to find.  However, the tape is stored in a secure, climate-controlled facility in case technical means emerge and while it’s unlikely the contents would reveal anything not already known or assumed, it would be of great interest to historians.  What would be even more interesting is the identity of who it was that erased the famous 18½ minutes but that will likely never be known; after fifty years, it’s thought that were there to be any death-bed confessions, they should by now have been heard.  Some have their lists of names of those who might have "pressed the erase button" and while mostly sub-sets of Watergate's "usual suspects", one who tends not to appear is Nixon himself, the usual consensus being he was technically too inept to operate a tape machine though it's not impossible he ordered someone to do the deed.  However it happened, the suspects most often mentioned as having had their "finger on the button" (which may have been a foot-pedal) are Nixon's secretary and his chief of staff.

Spat

Spat (pronounced spat)

(1) A petty quarrel; a dispute.

(2) A light blow; a slap or smack (now rare).

(3) A classic footwear accessory for outdoor wear (technically an ankle-length gaiter), covering the instep and ankle, designed to protect these areas from mud & stones etc which might be splattered (almost always in the plural).

(4) In automotive design, a piece of bodywork on a car's fender encapsulating the aperture of the wheel-arch, covering the upper portion of the wheel & tyre (almost always on the rear) and used variously to reduce drag or as a aesthetic choice.

(5) In aviation, on aircraft with fixed under-carriages, a partial enclosure covering the upper portion of the wheel & tyre, designed to reduce drag.

(6) In zoology, a larval oyster or similar bivalve mollusc, applied particularly when one settles to the sea bottom and starts to develop a shell; young oysters collectively, especially seed oysters.

1350-1400: From the Middle English spat (argument, minor scuffle), from the Anglo-Norman spat, of unknown origin but presumed related either to (1) being the simple past tense & past participle of spit or (2) something vaguely imitative of the sound of a dispute in progress.  In use, a spat implies a dispute which is minor and brief.  That doesn’t preclude violence being involved but the word does tend to be applied to matters with few serious consequences but a spat can of course escalate to something severe at which point it ceases to be a spat and becomes a brawl, a fight, a murder, a massacre or whatever the circumstances suggest is appropriate.  Otherwise, a spat is synonymous with words like bickering, brouhaha, disagreement, discord, falling-out, feud, squabble, tiff or argument.

As a descriptor of the short gaiter covering the ankle (which except in technical and commercial use is used only in the plural), use dates from 1779 as an invention of American English and a shortening of the trade-terms spatterdash (or splatterguard) (long gaiter to keep trousers or stockings from being spattered with mud), the construct being spatter + dash (or guard), the former the same idea as the noun dashboard which was a timber construction attached to the front of horse-drawn carriages to protect the passengers from mud or stones thrown up when the beasts were at a dash.  In cars, the use of the term dashboard persisted although the device both shifted rearward (aligned with the cowl (scuttle) & windscreen) and changed in function.  In aircraft where the link to horse-drawn transport didn’t exist, the preferred equivalent term became “instrument panel”.

Stanley Melbourne Bruce (front row, second from left) in spats, official photograph of his first cabinet, Melbourne, 1923.

Spats date from a time when walking in cities could be a messy business, paved surfaces far from universal.  As asphalt and concrete became commonplace in the twentieth century, spats fell from frequent use though there were those who clung to them as a fashion accessory.  Stanley Melbourne Bruce (1883–1967; prime minister of Australia 1923-1929) liked spats and wore them as late as the 1940s but historians of fashion note it's said nothing was more influential in their demise than George V (1865–1936; King of the United Kingdom 1910-1936) eschewing them after 1926.  They days, they're seen only in places like the Royal Enclosure at Ascot or smart weddings although variations are still part of some ceremonial full-dress military uniforms.  Technically, a spat probably can be called a “short” or “ankle-length” gaiter but it’s wise to use “spat” because gaiters are understood as extending higher towards the knee.

On the Jaguar 2.4 & 3.4 (1955-1959, top row; later retrospectively named Mark 1), full-sized spats were standard equipment when the standard wheels were fitted but some owners used the cut-down versions (available in at least two designs) fitted when the optional wire wheels were chosen.  For use in competition, almost all drivers removed the spats.  The Mark 2 (bottom row;1959-1969) was never fitted with the full-size units but many used slimmer version available from both the factory and third-party suppliers; again, in competition, spats in any shape were usually discarded.  On the big Jaguars, spats (which had already been scalloped) disappeared after production of the Mark IX ended in 1961.    

On cars, it wasn’t until the 1930s that spats (which some English manufacturers called "aprons" and in the US they came to be called “fender-skirts” though the original slang was “pants”) began to appear as the interest in streamlining and aerodynamic efficiency grew and it was in this era they became also a styling fad which, for better and worse, would last half a century.  They’d first been seen in the 1920s as aerodynamic enhancements on speed record vehicles and some avant-garde designers experimented with enveloping bodywork but it was only late in the decade that the original style of separate mudguards (later called cycle-fenders) gave way to more integrated coachwork where the wheel-arch was an identifiable feature in the modern sense.  Another issue was that the early tyres were prone to wear and damage and needed frequently to be changed, hence the advantage of making access to the wheels un-restricted.  In the 1930s, as streamlining evolved as both a means to reduce drag (thus increasing performance and reducing fuel consumption) and as a styling device, the latter doubtlessly influenced by the former.  On road cars, spats tended to be used only at the rear because of the need to provide sufficient clearance for the front wheels to turn although there were manufacturers (Delahaye, Nash and others) which extended use to the front and while this necessitated compromise (notably the turning circle and cooling of the brakes), there were some memorable art-deco creations.

The aerodynamic advantages were certainly real, attested by the tests conducted during the 1930s by Mercedes-Benz and Auto-Union, both factories using spats front and rear on their land-speed record vehicles, extending the use to road cars although later Mercedes-Benz would admit the 10% improvement claimed for the 1937 540K Autobahn-kurier (highway cruiser) was just “a calculation” and it’s suspected even this was more guesswork than math.  Later, Jaguar’s evaluation of the ideal configuration to use when testing the 1949 XK120 on Belgium roads revealed the rear spats added about 3-4 mph to top speed though they precluded the use of the lighter wire wheels and did increase the tendency of the brakes to overheat in severe use so, like many things in engineering, it was a trade-off.

1958, 1959 & 1960 Chevrolet Impalas.  Not actually wildly popular when new, accessory spats now often appear on restored cars as a “period accessory”.

In the post-war years, concerns with style rather than specific aerodynamic outcomes probably prevailed.  In the US especially, the design motifs borrowed from aircraft and missiles (where aerodynamic efficiency was important and verified in wind tunnels) were liberally applied to automobiles but in some cases, although they actually increased drag, they anyway appeared on production cars because they lent the desired look.  Because they added to the cost of production, spats tended often to be used on the more expensive ranges, this association encouraging after-market accessory makers to produce them, often for models where they’d never been available as a factory fitting or option.  Although now usually regarded as naff (at least), there’s still some demand because they are fitted sometimes (often in conjunction with that other acquired taste period-accessory, the "Continental" spare-tyre kit) by those restoring cars from the era although the photographic record does suggest that when the vehicles were new, such things were vanishingly rare.

Spats vanished from cars made in the UK and Europe except among manufacturers (such as Citroën) which made a fetish of conspicuous aerodynamics and in the US, where they endured, increasingly they appeared in cut-down form, exposing most of the wheel with only the upper part of the tyre concealed.  By the mid 1990s spats appeared only on some of the larger US cars (those by then also down-sized from their mid-seventies peak) and none survived into the new century, the swansong the 1996 Cadillac DeVille.  However, the new age of efficiency did see a resurgence of interest with spats (some actually integrated into the bodywork rather than being detachable) used on some electric and hybrid vehicles where every possible way of optimizing the use of energy is deployed.

1 1937 Mercedes-Benz W125 Rekordwagen

2 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K Autobahn-kurier

3 1937 Auto-Union Type C Stromlinie

4 1939 Mercedes-Benz W154 Rekordwagen

5 1939 Mercedes-Benz T-80

6 1940 Mercedes-Benz 770K Cabriolet B

9 1970 Porsche 917 LH

8 1988 Jaguar Jaguar XJR9

Pioneered by Mercedes-Benz and Auto-Union during the 1930s when the factory racing programmes were being subsidized by the Nazi regime as a national prestige project, spats were used on the specially tuned cars used for land-speed record attempts though not on the circuits where the air-flow was needed for brake cooling.  The use on the road cars was sometimes an overt allusion to the quest for aerodynamic efficiency such as those added to the streamlined 540K Autobahn-kurier (highway cruiser) but their use on big machines like the 770K was simply as a styling tool.  The highest evolution of the 1930’s theme was the aero-engined T-80, intended to lay siege to the world Land-Speed Record (LSR).  Powered by a 3,500 hp (2,600 kW), 44.5 litre (2,716 cubic inch) Daimler-Benz DB 603 inverted V12 (most of which were supplied to the Luftwaffe), calculations (all then by slide-rule) suggested it should reach 750 km/h (466 mph) on a 10 kilometre (6 mile) stretch of the Autobahn, closed to other traffic for the occasion.  Scheduled for January 1940, the outbreak of war meant the T-80 never ran.  In the years since, partial or complete spats have often been used on high-speed vehicles in competition.

1970 Chaparral 2J. 

The most extraordinary vindication of the concept was probably the 1970 Chaparral 2J, built for the Canadian-American Challenge Cup (the Can-Am, a series for unlimited displacement sports cars under the FIA’s minimalist Group 7 rules).  Although using a similar frame and power-plant (the all aluminum, 427 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Chevrolet V8 (ZL1)) as most of its competition, it differed in that the bodywork was rather more rectilinear, the transmission was semi-automatic and, most intriguingly, the use of two small auxiliary engines (Rockwell JLO 247 cm³ two-stroke, two-cylinder units which usually powered snowmobiles).  Unlike the auxiliary engines used in modern hybrids which provide additional or alternative power, what the Rockwells did was drive two fans (borrowed from the M-109 Howitzer, the US Army’s self-propelled 155 mm (6 inch) cannon) which pumped air from underneath at 9650 cfm (cubic feet per minute) (273 m3 per minute), literally sucking the 2J to the road, the technique enhanced by a Lexan (a thermoplastic polymer) skirt which partially sealed the gap between the shell and the road.  The rear spats (integrated into the body-shell) were part of the system, offering not only their usual contribution to reduced drag but increasing the extent of the suction generated by the extractor fans.  The 2J was immediately faster than the competition but the suction system proved fragile although, as a proof of concept it worked and it was clear that only development was needed to debug things.  Unfortunately, innovation and high speeds have always appalled the FIA (the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile which has for decades been international sport’s dopiest regulatory body) and they banned the 2J.  Really, the FIA should give up on motorsport and offer their services to competitive crochet where they can focus on things like pins and needles not being too sharp.

1949 Delahaye 175-S Saoutchik roadster (left), 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special  (centre) & 2016 Rolls-Royce Vision Next 100 (electric) (right).

Fashions change and spats in the post-war years became unfashionable except in the odd market segment which appealed to an older demographic and even there, as the years were by, they were cut-away, revealing more of the wheel & tyre but they never entirely went away and designers with big computers now don’t even need even bigger wind tunnels to optimize airflow and spats have been displayed which are mounted vertically, some even responding to dynamic need by shifting location or direction.

Flown first in 1938 and named after the Spartan admiral Lysander (circa 467-395 BC), the Westland Lysander was a British army co-operation and communications aircraft used extensively during the Second World War (1939-1945).  Although it couldn’t match the extraordinary STOL (short Take-Off & Landing) performance of the its German contemporary the Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, it was capable, robust and had a good enough short-field capability to perform valuable service throughout the conflict.  Like many aircraft with a fixed undercarriage, partially enveloping spats were fitted to reduce drag but those on the Lysander had the unusual feature of being fitted with their own removable spats (similar to those used on automobiles).  Once these were dismounted, assemblies could be fitted to mount either Browning machine guns or stub wings which could carry light bombs or supply canisters.  The arrangement was popular with ground crew because the accessibility made servicing easy and pilots appreciated the low placement because the change in weight distribution had little adverse effect on handling characteristics.