KCSI Sem­i­nar: The Pres­i­den­t’s Kill List by Luca Trenta

Event Description:

From Fidel Castro to Qassem Soleimani, the US government has been involved in an array of assassinations and assassination attempts against foreign leaders and officials. In a talk based on his recently published Edinburgh University Press book, The President's Kill List: Assassination and US Foreign Policy since 1945, Luca Trenta reveals how the US government has relied on a variety of methods, from the use of poison to the delivery of sniper rifles, and from employing hitmen to simply laying the groundwork for local actors to do the deed themselves. It shows not only how policymakers decided on assassination but also the level of Presidential control over these decisions. Tracing the history of the US government’s approach to assassination, the talk analyses the evolution of assassination policies and reveals how successive administrations - through private justifications and public legitimations – ensured assassination remained an available tool. 

Link to the book: The President’s Kill List (edinburghuniversitypress.com)

Speaker’s bio:

Luca Trenta is Associate Professor in International Relations at Swansea University. He held a 2017 British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award for his project: ‘Out of the Shadows: understanding, researching and teaching covert action.’ Through the project, Luca has carried out several engagement and outreach events in Welsh and English schools, as well as networking events for Early Career Researchers. Three podcast episodes are also available on SoundCloud and Apple Podcasts featuring topics such as covert operations and regime change. He previously received a British Academy Small Research grant for his project on 'Targeted killing? The recurrence of assassination is US foreign policy.' His current research focuses mainly on the US government’s involvement in the assassination of foreign officials from the Cold War to the present day. He has published articles in IR, Intelligence Studies, and International Law journals. These include works on the Ford Administration and the development of the US ban on assassination, on the Obama Administration use (and legitimation of) targeted killing, and on the international adoption of an expanded notion of imminence to justify uses of forces in self-defence. He previously published a monograph on risk and presidential decision-making with Routledge. He has also published articles on US foreign policy and presidential decision-making in The European Journal of International Security, Diplomacy and Statecraft and in The Journal of Transatlantic Studies.  In 2020, Luca appeared in four episodes of the History Channel documentary Secret Wars Uncovered. He has worked with BBC Radio 3 on the Free Thinking programme as well as with the Being Human Festival for the Humanities. In collaboration with Professor Rory Cormac, Luca has organised a talk at the Hay-on-Wye International Book festival. With BBC Ideas he has produced a short movie on the history of assassination. He is also a regular contributor to The Conversation, Talk Radio, Nation Radio, and BBC Radio Wales.