A Classic Thriller That Still Hits The Target
I recently re-read The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel about a political assassination attempt in Europe. It’s an elegant piece of storytelling—meticulous, restrained, and grounded in realism. The assassin, known as “The Jackal,” is not a rough and tough former Special Forces Soldier in the mold of a typical Hollywood caricature, but a cold professional who plans and executes with precision. The target: Charles de Gaulle, the sitting President of France.
Forsyth’s ability to keep readers on the edge of their seats isn’t just literary skill—it’s situational accuracy. The book doesn’t romanticize violence. It illustrates how patience, anonymity, and bureaucracy can all become tools in the hands of someone determined enough to use them. The book also speaks to the authorities’ investigative measures, civilian police and uniformed military cooperation, and liaison with foreign partners.
As someone who spent years studying threats—some theoretical, some horrifyingly real—I can say this: assassination is not an artifact of history or fiction. It’s still used today–as we have seen in very recent U.S. politics, and more often than most people want to believe. And the principles behind it haven’t changed much.
Assassination: Not Just the Stuff of Spy Novels
The idea that assassination belongs to the Cold War or some long-past era is a myth. Political killings remain a tool of statecraft for countries that either don’t respect norms or feel desperate enough to bypass them.
We’ve seen heads of dissident media outlets poisoned. We’ve seen journalists and defectors eliminated abroad. We’ve seen drone strikes used for “targeted killings” with plausible deniability. And we’ve seen supposed accidents that raise every red flag if you know where to look.
The motives haven’t changed. Remove a threat. Send a message. Influence a power vacuum. What has changed are the tools—and, in some cases, the thresholds of acceptability. The Day of the Jackal was authored decades before iphones and the internet, but therein lies the novel’s value: a smart assassin in 2025 will stay off his or her phone and not touch the internet, so the tradecraft we are exposed to by Forsyth applies today, in a scary way.
The Thin Line Between Legality and Strategy
In the intelligence world, the line between “authorized lethal force” and “assassination” can be thinner than a cigarette paper. Countries that claim they don’t assassinate often engage in “targeted killings,” a term that’s legally flexible and strategically convenient.
And yes, the U.S. has been part of that evolution. I won’t get into sensitive stuff, but the general arc is public knowledge: 9/11 shifted how we think about preemptive action. High-value targets, drone operations, and cross-border strikes became central tools.
Still, there are risks—legal, ethical, and operational. When you normalize covert killing, you open the door for your adversaries to do the same. You set precedents. And you hope that nobody turns those tools inward. (Think mini, one way, lethal drones supported by AI and defensive cyber).
The New Players: Authoritarians and Proxies
Russia has turned assassination into a political tool with almost industrial efficiency. From Litvinenko to Navalny to Prigozhin, the list is long—and the message is always clear: dissent has consequences, even thousands of miles from home.
Iran has done the same, targeting opposition figures abroad and orchestrating plots against foreign diplomats. North Korea, too, has shown it isn’t above using chemical agents in public airports.
Also concerning is the role of proxies—militias, criminal networks, or shadow operatives paid to carry out hits that the state can deny. These groups blur responsibility. They complicate accountability. And they make it easier to get away with murder. So very prescient, Forsyth’s Jackal makes regular use of the criminal underworld to prepare for his hit of de Gaulle.
Fiction Gets the Feel Right
What The Day of the Jackal does so well is show how assassination is as much about strategy as it is about the trigger pull. It’s about identities that don’t exist. Documents that don’t raise flags. Travel patterns that don’t draw attention.
That’s still how it works. You don’t need sci-fi gadgets or Jason Bourne acrobatics. You need planning, discretion, and patience. In fact, most real assassins aren’t elite martial artists. They’re more likely to look like quiet bureaucrats or traveling businessmen, as was the Jackal.
And that’s the real warning embedded in Forsyth’s work: It’s not the obvious threat you need to worry about. It’s the one who doesn’t fit the storybook image.
Why It Still Matters
You might wonder why any of this should matter to everyday citizens. Here’s why: when political assassination is normalized, democracy suffers. When states resort to murder to silence critics, rule of law evaporates. And when public discourse becomes dangerous, truth retreats into silence.
Understanding the mechanics of how these operations work—what makes them possible, and how they’re justified—isn’t just academic. It’s civic awareness. It helps us spot warning signs when our own institutions begin to slip.
Final Thoughts
Forsyth wrote The Day of the Jackal over 50 years ago, but its relevance hasn’t faded. In fact, it may be more important now than when it was first published. As technology evolves and the global order gets shakier, the tools of covert influence—assassination included—are being used in more subtle and deniable ways.
For those of us who’ve operated in the shadows, the story isn’t just fiction—it’s a cautionary tale. One that reminds us that behind every political killing, there’s a broader war being fought—not just over power, but over the rules we claim to live by.