Assassination

In its most common use, assassination has come to mean the killing of an important person. An assassin — one who carries out the assassination — is usually motivated by ideological or political reasons. Other motivations may be money in the case of a hitman; opposition to a person's beliefs or belief systems in the case of a fanatic; orders from a government that are often carried about by a subversive agent such as a spy; or loyalty to a competing leader or group.

Further reading

• Cloak and Dollar (A History of American Secret Intelligence) by Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones
• A short article on the U.S. policy banning political assassination since 1976 from CNN. See also Ford's 1976 executive order.
• American Domestic Terrorists and Assassins