1971 Washington D.C Car Bombings

* President Michael Kennedy
 * 4 CIA agents
 * 21 Civilian Deaths and 31 Injuries

The **1971 Washington, D.C. Car bombings** was a domestic-terrorist event, that took place on June 17th, 1971. And resulted in the failed assassinations of Speaker of the House George Ross, President of Ewing Oils J.R. Ewing, and Senate Majority Leader Trenton Xavier.

## Events leading up to the Bombing

Many event would take place leading up to the bombing, then Vice President of the United States, Spiro Agnew was was facing impeachment for when he was serving as the Governor to Maryland, taking bribes and payments as Vice President.

Tensions in Vietnam were also rising, with the question of can, then President Michael Kennedy, lead the country. There was also growing pressure from Congressional democrats to make charges of impeachment against Kennedy, due to believing his inability to serve, after making threats of nuclear war to the Soviet Union.

## The Assassination Plot & Execution

With coordination from then Director of the central intelligence agency Simon Falluso, and under order of Michael Kennedy, George Ross, J.R. Ewing, and Trenton Xavier were to be assassinated, the methods of assassination were not able to be successfully executed, but did result in the deaths of many others.

Majority Leader, Trenton Xavier was to be assassinated by a car bombing, the car was traveling on its way to pickup the Senator, where it would be then detonated. The car instead hit a pothole, and ignited the bomb. The radius from the blast, killed 21, and injured 31 citizens. This is when many questions would arise as to how and why this happened. The result of this would have Simon Falluso deliver a testimony to the House of Representatives, as well as many other witnesses to the event. This would also assist special counsel W. Saxbe to deliver his Saxbe report on the bombing.

President of Ewing oils, J.R. Ewing would be assassinated by a rifle gun, however the plot did not go as planned. Ewing would be alerted of the break-ins by the sniper rifles, to get in a postion, although they did have a chance to shoot and kill Ewing, the bullet missed. This would also be shown in the Saxbe Report.

House Speaker George Ross, would be assassinated by Ricin Poisoning. The assassination team, would break into Ross’s home, and plant the poisoning in either his food or drink, it is unsure how it would happen, but what we do know is that the CIA operatives did not go through poisoning attempt. This might be due to the media covering the car bombing in Washington, D.C., and the upped security for high ranking officials, after it was clear what was happening. This is also seen in the Saxbe report.

## Results of the failed assassination plot

There are very dramatic results of the event. But the biggest, would have to be the death, and suicide of President Michael Kennedy, which happened after it was clear who ordered the assassination. This is when newly sworn in Vice President, Henry Jefferson, who became Vice President after the resignation of Spiro Agnew, he would assume the role of president. Jefferson was not aware of the events ordered by the President.

The House and Senate also passed a bill, which would ban former Vice President Spiro Agnew from holding a political office ever again, he is currently serving in prison.

It would also separate the Government from its people, seeing as its own president ordered the assassination of high ranking officials, a majority of people do not trust the Government because of this separation. and will likely cause issues in the future, or it will be re established by a new president come 1972, yet that is up to the people.