Assassination from MLK to Mrs T: Contrast and Convergence in the United States and Britain

State response to assassination conspiracies is a reality behind diplomacy. This examination analyses British and American responses to assassination from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. It argues the United States and Britain began with very different cultures of assassination. The 1980s was a period of structural convergence driven by practical collaboration: it had little to do with a longstanding ‘special relationship’, the Second Cold War, or relations between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.