It’s 50 years this year since
Frederick Forsyth’s classic novel of assassination, The Day of the Jackal, was published. In my book Assassins’ Deeds: A history of assassination
from Ancient Egypt to the present day (Reaktion), I muse on how closely
real assassins mirror the character of Forsyth’s would-be killer.
The Jackal, whose real name we
never discover, plans absolutely meticulously. He commissions a
specially-designed super-thin rifle that can be hidden in his crutch as he
pretends to be a wounded war veteran. He has long before selected the perfect
window from which to shoot his victim. He chews cordite to make himself look
ill and ease his way past security checks.
It is strictly business. He is
going to kill his quarry, President de Gaulle, because he is being paid a lot of
money. He is ruthless, murdering a number of people who get, or might get, in his
way. And he fails, because the intended victim moves his head at the crucial
moment and the Jackal’s shot misses.
One respect in which the Jackal was
not typical was in his decision to try to kill his victim at a distance. Of 266
assassinations I analysed, only 19 were not up close and personal. Until the
nineteenth century, stabbing was the favourite method, but even when firearms
took over, it tended to be the handgun at close quarters rather than the
sniper’s rifle.
Nor were hired killers of the
Jackal kind very common – just 18 of them. Most assassins were activated by
motives other than money – ambition, anger, fear, religion, ideology. Few
assassinations were as well planned as the one Forsyth portrays, so mercifully,
according to an American study I quote, more than four in five fail.
But the way the victim escapes in
Forsyth’s novel does have a parallel in the real world. In 1800, a would-be
assassin took a pot shot at King George III in a London theatre, but missed
because the monarch bowed his head to acknowledge the cheers of the audience at
the critical instant.
Many other similarities and
differences emerge in the book.
