Killers in Cold Blood

by Ray Black

  In 1920, Gandhi began his campaign against Britain. He urged Indians to boycott anything British and to start spinning cotton for their own benefits. Because of this, Gandhi was forced to spend two years in prison, from 1922 to 1924. Undeterred by his years of incarceration, Gandhi led thousands of Indians on a 200-mile march in 1930 in protest against the salt tax imposed on his country. Once again he was imprisoned to literally put him ‘out of the way’.

  Gandhi retired as head of the Indian National Congress party, but to all intents and purposes he was still their leader and everyone looked to him for guidance. He believed that India would not be free until it could be released from the restrictions of the British Empire and, quite early in World War II, he demanded immediate independence in return for aiding Britain in the war. Once again he was imprisoned for his impudence and was not released until 1944.

  Gandhi eventually saw his dreams come true when, in 1947, India won its independence. However, independence brought its own troubles when India divided into three separate countries, as explained earlier, which culminated in Hindu–Muslim riots. Gandhi, still using peaceful tactics, resorted to fasting until rioters would pledge peace to him.

  This move was to be his downfall. On January 30, 1948, while travelling to Delhi for prayers, he was killed by a Hindu who was angry at Gandhi’s attempt to reconcile two different religious sects. The assassin was a Hindu radical by the name of Nathuram Godse, who was known to have links with the extremist Hindu Mahasabha organisation. This group held Gandhi responsible for weakening India by insisting on a payment to Pakistan.

  Nathuram Godse and his co-conspirator, Narayan Apte, were both executed on November 15, 1949, for the assassination of Gandhi.

  Almost fifty years after his death, in January 1997, the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi were scattered on the Ganges River during a ceremony to honour his memory. Thousands gathered to watch the ceremony, wanting to remember the man who had succeeded, however briefly, in unifying their nation.

  After Gandhi was shot, Jawaharlal Nehru, the leader of the Indian National Congress party, spoke to the people of India about the man who had strived so hard for his people and country:

  Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere, and I do not quite know what to tell you or how to say it. Our beloved leader, Bapu as we called him, the father of the nation, is no more. Perhaps I am wrong to say that; nevertheless, we will not see him again, as we have seen him for these many years, we will not run to him for advice or seek solace from him, and that is a terrible blow, not only for me, but for millions and millions in this country.

  Aldo Moro

  Aldo Moro was a highly successful and committed politician. As prime minister of Italy five times between the years 1963 and 1976, he had made an important contribution to Italy’s political landscape and to his party: the Christian Democrats. The Christian Democrat party, or Democrazia Cristiana (DC), had its roots in the Catholic Conservatism which was once widespread in the Italian countryside, but in this unstable, postwar climate the party’s ideology had begun to fragment and change, and so had that of the nation as a whole. The DC’s policies, thanks to the input of left-wing members such as Amintor Fanfani, had begun to swing towards the centre left, and a third of the Italian population now supported the Italian Communist Party, making them one of the most powerful communist organisations in Western Europe, and they were busy making inroads into Italian government.

  On March 16, 1978, Aldo Moro left his apartment in Rome to attend morning prayers at a local church. Later that same day he was due to inaugurate a new coalition government that would include, for the first time in thirty years, the Italian Communist Party. This was considered by many to be a controversial action. Moro received threats to desist in his attempts to unite Italy’s political factions or pay dearly. In the end, he paid with his life.

  The radical communist organisation, the Red Brigade, or Brigate Rosse, fiercely opposed the scheme. Previously, the Italian Communist Party had staunchly opposed the Christian Democratic rule in Italy during a period of serious economic, social and political crisis, and now the communists were preparing to join their former enemies in a coalition government. Aldo Moro had been a key player in bringing the two sides together in the name of ‘national solidarity’.

  Members of the Red Brigade considered the assimilation of the Communist Party into the capitalist establishment of the Italian government to be a huge mistake. It was impossible, they argued, for the Communist Party to make any real headway without out and out revolution. Anything less would mean compromising their left-wing principles. This was something the Red Brigade were not prepared to do and they did not understand why anyone of their political persuasion would want to enter into a deal with people of such disparate values to their own. To the Red Brigade, it was akin to selling your soul to Satan, or simply waving the white flag of defeat. They decided to take violent action.

  On leaving his apartment Aldo Moro climbed into the back of his chauffeur-driven car, bound for church. He was accompanied in the back seat by his personal bodyguard. A second car carrying a driver and two more bodyguards followed the first. As the convoy was heading up a street called Via Fani, a Fiat 128 reversed suddenly from an adjoining street into the path of the first car. The car Moro was travelling in came to an abrupt halt and the second car, containing the two bodyguards, careered into the back of it. A male and a female then jumped out of the Fiat, shooting the driver and the bodyguard in Moro’s car, but leaving Moro without injury. Then four men, quite bizarrely dressed in airline pilot’s uniforms, who had been standing on the pavement outside a bar, pulled out semi-automatic machine guns and opened fire on the second car, killing everyone inside.

  For all Moro’s protection, none of his bodyguards were able to save him from the clutches of the Red Brigade on that fateful day. He was bundled into a getaway car, and then transferred into the trunk of a van parked nearby. From there he was transported to an apartment on Via Montalcini where a makeshift cell had been constructed especially for the purpose. He was to be interred indefinitely in a ‘people’s prison’ until fourteen of Red Brigade’s members, on trial in Turin, were released without charge. They were to have a long wait.

  The Italian establishment reacted like any other government keen to stamp out terrorist activity. They refused to negotiate with the Red Brigade, but neither did they attempt to free him by force. Aldo Moro was on his own. As a man who did not believe that hard-line politics could ever be truly successful, and that negotiation was the only way to solve Italy’s problems, Moro felt deeply frustrated and angered by his party’s total refusal to negotiate. The Italian coalition government that Moro had worked so tirelessly to bring together, backed by the Americans and the West Germans, closed ranks and the nation’s media followed suit. No public opposition of the government’s hard line would be tolerated. Editors, reporters and columnists fell into line, and soon Moro was being painted as a madman in the press. In one of a series of desperate letters written to his family from his makeshift prison cell, he wrote: ‘I face the solitary fate of the political prisoner condemned to death’. As one might expect, members of the DC party claimed that Moro was writing under the threat of torture, or under the influence of mind-altering drugs.

  Some members of the Red Brigade claim that the DC’s behaviour so shocked and angered Moro, that he began to feel alienated by the party he had formerly led. He found sympathy with his captors, in particular its leader Mario Morretti, who is thought to have been the mastermind of the operation and the only Red Brigade member to speak to Moro during his fifty-four-day incarceration. This could have signalled the onset of stockholm syndrome, a psychological response whereby a captive begins to display signs of loyalty with the hostage taker. But according to Morretti, a genuine bond developed between the two men.

  If Morretti’s accounts are to be believed, the scenes that played out during this time would have been fascinating to witness.
These two incredibly powerful and charismatic men from completely opposite political standpoints were in constant communication during this time. Moro, known as Italy’s greatest political mediator, facing a possible death sentence at the hands of radical communists, and Morretti facing the possibility that, due to the DC’s hardline stance, he would soon be forced to carry out that death sentence on a man he had come to respect. They engaged in an impassioned war of words. Moro used his ingenious wit, charm and natural intelligence, indeed everything he had, to bargain for his life. Morretti maintains that Moro was clear-thinking at all times, even in the most stressful situations. In a book by Morretti called Red Brigades: An Italian Story, he writes:

  We didn’t know a thing about how the power game is played. Moro taught me to understand it a little, clarifying what immediately became his battle against his party, the battle that in the end he’d lose. We were on opposite sides, but we worked together. I would pass along some information, a newspaper; all he would need was a few details, often a mere remark, to grasp what was going on. This was his universe, and he knew it to perfection.

  Morretti continues to claim that it was the hard-line stance adopted by the DC party that ultimately forced the hand of the Red Brigade, that he had no choice but to carry out Moro’s execution, but this is highly hypocritical. What of Morretti’s own refusal to back down? When it finally became clear that DC would not negotiate to save Moro’s life, there was disagreement within the ranks of the Red Brigade. Some members opposed the killing and wanted Moro released despite their failure to achieve their own goals. Morretti does not claim to be one of the members fighting for Moro’s freedom and surely, as their leader, if he had argued for Moro’s release, his opinion would have carried extra weight. When Moro realised what was to be his fate, he wrote a final letter to DC, demanding that no party members should be admitted at his funeral. He had finally resigned himself to the death of a prisoner of war.

  When the time eventually came on May 9, 1978, Morretti was the man who led Moro from his cell to a nearby garage, where four members of the Red Brigade were waiting. He was bundled into a car, told to cover himself with a blanket, and told he was being transferred to another location. In this final act, the soldiers of the Red Brigade showed despicable cowardice, for they were not able to face killing Moro directly. By ordering him to cover himself, they were undoubtedly hiding from the reality of what they were about to do, just as the coalition government had distanced themselves from Moro’s humanity in order to justify their non-action. The Red Brigade emptied ten rounds into Moro’s chest. None of the members who stood trial for his murder ever admitted pulling the trigger.

  By the time of Moro’s assassination, Rome was under extremely close surveillance by the Italian police who were supposedly hunting high and low for any sign of the missing politician. Despite this, Morretti and his men were able to drive a van, carrying the dead body of Moro, through the streets of Rome to a site exactly equidistant between the DC party HQ and that of the Italian Communist Party, where they simply abandoned it. The enduring image of Aldo Moro’s discoloured and cumbersome corpse lying slumped in the back of that van has appeared in newspapers and on television sets all over the world. It is a truly startling image which powerfully portrays the harsh reality of what had happened, or what had been allowed to happen. Many of Italy’s political elite must have encountered that image with an overwhelming sense of shame. If one holds with any of the conspiracy theories that were rife following Moro’s murder, the Red Brigade were not the only people with blood on their hands.

  Many believe that, in an attempt to stop Italy’s political system pursuing a communist manifesto, the CIA infiltrated the Red Brigade and recruited Morretti in order that he might create tension between the two factions, thus destroying the coalition. If this is the case, the plan backfired badly, as the DC and the communists were not divided over Moro’s fate. The only real loser was Moro himself.

  John Lennon

  On the evening of December 8, 1980, former Beatle, John Lennon, was murdered in front of his apartment building in New York City. One of the world’s most famous rock stars, lay in a state of semi-consciousness, blood pouring from four bullet wounds. His wife, Yoko Ono, tenderly held his head in her arms and wailed in grief. Within the hour Lennon’s Dakota apartment building was turned into a makeshift shrine, fans crying, bearing candles, all standing round in a state of disbelief. The scene was almost surreal and, like many assassinations, over twenty years later, people are still asking ‘Why?’

  John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, England. He was raised by his mother Julia and his aunt Mimi, while his father, Freddie, worked on board a ship, spending many months away from home. In July 1946, Freddie returned saying that he wanted to take his son with him to New Zealand. John’s mother was against the idea but gave her son the option of where he would like to live. He chose to stay in England and didn’t see his father again for twenty years. After his father left, John formed a much stronger bond with his mother and during this period he started to experiment with music. The first instrument he played was a banjo, moving on later to a guitar.

  John’s life was turned upside down when his mother was killed after she was struck by a car on July 15, 1958. It was a traumatic experience and one that haunted him for the remainder of his life. Music became John’s comfort and he purchased his first guitar for the sum of seventeen pounds.

  John played in many skiffle groups but his big break came in late 1960, when he set the foundation for the group that would change the course of music forever – The Beatles.

  John and Yoko’s limousine pulled up outside their apartment at 22.49 on December 8, 1980. The doorman stepped forward to open the car door for them and Yoko stepped out onto the street first. John followed close behind, carrying a tape recorder and some music casettes. As Yoko walked past a young man he turned and said ‘Hello’, causing John to give him a long, hard look to see if he knew him.

  As John passed the man, he dropped into a combat stance and pulled a snubnosed .38 revolver out of his pocket. With his knees flexed and his arms outstretched, the man asked, ‘Mr Lennon?’ and, as John turned his head, the man fired two shots. The bullets caught John in the back and although he was already pouring with blood, the assassin took aim again. The gunman fired three more shots – one missed but the other two found their target and embedded in John’s shoulder. There was the sound of shattering glass as the bullets passed through John’s body and shattered the glass doors at the front of the Dakota apartment building. John, with blood spurting out of his wounds, staggered up to the lobby, his face grimacing in pain, before dropping to the floor in a state of semi-consciousness.

  ‘John’s been shot!’, Yoko screamed and followed John into the lobby. The building’s security man went straight to the desk and pressed the alarm button, which alerted the police at the nearby 20th Precinct station. Then he rushed over to John, removed his glasses which had been smashed in the attack, and covered his body with his own jacket.

  By the time John was put into the back of a squad car, he had lost all control of his limbs and was unable to speak. The car sped through red lights and swung into the entrance of the Roosevelt Hospital. By the time John reached the emergency room his pulse was barely audible. The two bullets that hit him in the back had pierced a lung and passed out through his chest. A third bullet had shattered his left shoulder bone and a fourth had hit the same shoulder and ricocheted inside his chest, severing his aorta and windpipe. An emergency team tried every possible device and technique to save his life, but having lost eighty per cent of his blood John was just too weak to fight for his life.

  Ironically, John had been having nightmares about violent deaths and gunshot wounds. He had become fascinated with numerology (the study of the occult meanings of numbers and their supposed influence on human life) and had even had visions of his own sudden death. He was so affected by these visions that one of the last songs he e
ver wrote mentions ‘the angel of destruction’ haunting his body.

  Directly after the shooting, a chubby young man stood a few yards away reading the pages of a paperback novel, J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. The doorman of the Dakota apartment buildings called across to the man, ‘Do you know what you’ve done?’

  The young man casually replied, ‘I just shot John Lennon’.

  The gunman was Mark David Chapman, a man who suffered from severe delusional paranoid schizophrenia. Like most schizophrenics, Chapman was convinced that he had been chosen to fulful a special mission. He was convinced that he was being given clear signs that no one else could see, and that these signs were hidden in the text of books and magazines that he read. He also believed that certain songs contained lyrics that were words from false prophets and that he had to simply wait for the final signal.

  John Lennon had become paranoid about appearing in pubic after almost five years of self-imposed seclusion, but he was starting to overcome his problems and was about to make a comeback. He had agreed to being interviewed so that he could promote his latest album, Double Fantasy, but what he didn’t know was that he had unwittingly sent out signals to his assassin.

  On October 20, 1980, Chapman read about John Lennon’s return to the recording studios. He decided to resign from his security job and when he signed out for the last time he used the name ‘John Lennon’, then crossed it out. On October 27, Chapman went to a gun shop in Honolulu and brought a .38-calibre Charter Arms Special for $169.

  On October 30, wearing a new suit and carrying the gun in a suitase, Chapman boarded a plan to New York City.