Word: mornard
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Brutal Bon Vivant. The next assassin did better. Jacques Mornard was one of those dedicated Stalinists who were willing to devote a lifetime to one shabby crime (he was released from a Mexican prison in 1960 and returned to Russia for his reward). Mornard began his well-laid plot by courting a homely girl from New York who served as a courier for Trotsky. He played the part of a bon vivant, showed no interest in politics and got the bemused girl to marry him. The first few times his wife visited Trotsky, Mornard tactfully waited outside. After several months...
...when Trotsky was feeding his rabbits, Mornard caught him alone. He pulled an ice ax from his coat and drove it into Trotsky's head. Mornard had expected to kill him instantly and make a getaway. But the old man gave a mighty curse, threw books, inkwells, a Dictaphone at his assailant and grappled with him until help came. Trotsky died as he had lived-fighting fiercely but in vain...
Last week the assassin went free, his story still untold. During his trial he insisted that his name was Jacques Mornard, and claimed to be a Belgian Communist who had supported Trotsky in his bitter feud with Stalin. Why, then, had he killed him? Because he had become disillusioned with his onetime idol. Sentenced to 20 years, the prisoner clung stubbornly to his story, even though Mexican authorities were able to prove he was actually a Spaniard named Ramón Mercader, a convinced Communist who fought on the Loyalists' side in the Spanish Civil War, was later enrolled...
...week's end Mercader vanished from Cuba, was presumably enroute for Czechoslovakia. Still living in the Mexico City villa where her husband was brutally murdered, Widow Natalia Trotsky, 80, said softly: "Mornard is now going to his reward-or his elimination...