This document is online at: http://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/HWNAU/
-------------------------------------------------------------------


                       A "Political Translation" from
                  Isaac Don Levine's Mind of the Assassin

                            by E. Martin Schotz


January 1, 1994

Re: The Mind of the Assassin, by Isaac Don Levine (New York: Farrar, Straus,
and Cudahy, 1959).

     This book by an associate of Allen Dulles is presented by the author as
a study of Trotsky's assassination by Mercader, a study which Levine claims
sheds light on the mind of assassins in general in the contemporary period.
Documents from secret sessions of the Warren Commission reveal that Allen
Dulles planned to use Levine to see to it that Marina Oswald would not
testify that Lee Harvey Oswald was a U.S. government agent.[1]

     The following quotations are of interest.

     On the title page of the book, Levine quotes Camus: "In the twentieth
century power wears the mask of tragedy." This as well as other references
make clear that his book is intended to refer to a general modern
phenomenon.

     p. 143 -- Re: Mercader. "[H]e had a strong tendency to tell much that
was truthful about himself. Hence, his subsequent statements to the police
often involved a minimum of invention. All that was needed to bring out the
truth in many of his accounts was to substitute the NKVD for the Fourth
International."

     p. 214 -- "The key to Mercader, who typifies the modern political
assassin, is to be found in the special character of the organization in
which he has enlisted for life. The Soviet power is an amalgam of a temporal
state and a political religion. It is in the nature of a military order in
which the government authorities and the Communist Party priesthood are one
supreme source of faith and strength. Mercader became an assassin both as a
servant of that government and a missionary of its communist faith, and is
beyond redemption."

     p. 137 -- Concerning Mercader's "confession note": "Experts would have
recognized the letter as characteristic, both in style and content, of other
known fabrications of the NKVD. However, this fact could not have been
easily established had the assassin perished at the scene of the crime or
escaped from it. Without being available for examination, the NKVD would
have been enabled to make the Trotsky murder seem like an insoluble mystery.
Yet the internal evidence that the letter was of NKVD manufacture was
conclusive."

                      --------------------------------

     Since all understanding is to a significant degree projection, we are
justified in asking whether Levine is talking about himself, Dulles, and the
CIA as much as he is about the NKVD. In exploring the question I suggest we
need only translate the following terms:

     "Trotsky" into "Kennedy"
     "Soviet" into "American"
     "communist" into "anti-communist"
     "NKVD" into "CIA"
     "Mercader" into "Levine/Dulles/CIA"

     "Mercader's fabricated letter of confession" into "release of the
     U.S. mass media"

     In this case we then get the following:

     Levine has a strong tendency to tell much that is truthful about
     himself and Dulles. . . . All that is needed to bring out the
     truth . . . is to substitute CIA for NKVD, etc. . . .

     The key to Dulles, who typifies the modern political assassin, is
     to be found in the special character of the organization in which
     he has enlisted for life. The American power is an amalgam of a
     temporal state and a political religion. It is in the nature of a
     military order in which the government authorities and the
     anti-communist party priesthood are one supreme source of faith
     and strength. Dulles became an assassin both as a servant of that
     government and as a missionary of its anti-communist faith, and is
     beyond redemption.

     Concerning the actions of the U.S. mass media surrounding the
     murder of Kennedy -- Experts [such as Castro] recognized their
     releases as characteristic in style and content, of other known
     fabrications of the CIA. This fact could not be easily established
     because Oswald perished almost immediately and the others involved
     escaped from the scene. Without the "assassin" being available to
     be examined, the CIA was thus able to make the murder of Kennedy
     seem like an insoluble mystery. Yet the internal evidence that the
     press releases were of CIA manufacture is conclusive.



Notes
-------------------------

  1. Document Addendum to the Warren Report (El Segundo, Ca.: Sightext
     Publications, 1968), p. 200.



                   http://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/HWNAU/