An Unquiet Week in Washington

In June of 1968, following the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson set up the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. A task force made up of academics studied killings, attempted killings, and assaults on eighty-one state legislators, congressmen, senators, governors, and Presidents, dating back to 1835. Their findings presented a discordant medley: cases involving mentally disturbed people, extremists, and terrorists; political grievances that escalated; and one incident, in 1890, in which a journalist shot and killed a congressman who had been harassing him. Over all, attacks on politicians seemed to spike in times of social instability, such as during Reconstruction.

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