DISCLAIMER:
Photos, obviously.
*And the NKVD was referred to as the GPU (despite being 20 years out of date).
Also, the assassin was not American. Nor was his name Frank Jackson (his alias).
The Milwaukee Journal (August 22, 1940)
Trotsky Ax Assassin Named as American
…
Old Bolshevik Leader Loses Valiant Battle for Life; Aides Quotes Him as Blaming GPU
…
Mexico City, Mexico –
Leon Trotsky, 60, world famed leader of the Russian Revolution, died Wednesday night, the victim of a pickax assassin whom Mexican police described as an American. Trotsky succumbed to head wounds inflicted Tuesday.
Trotsky’s brain was pierced by a pickax wielded by Frank Jackson, who for months posed as a “great admirer” of the chieftain of the Fourth International.
An exile from Russia since 1929 and a refugee in Mexico since Jan. 9, 1937, the former Soviet war commissar lay Thursday in a casket to which was pinned his last words:
I am sure of the final victory of the Fourth International. Go forward.
Gen. Manuel Nunez, chief of police said he believed Trotsky had fallen victim to an international plot in which the GPU* (Russian secret police) was involved. He mobilized the best men in Mexico’s police corps to clear up the case.
Trotsky’s associates, and Trotsky himself charged Josef Stalin, head of the Soviet Union and long time political foe of Trotsky, and the GPU* with responsibility for the second assault on Trotsky within three months. May 24, he escaped harm in a machine gun attack for which more than 20 Mexicans were arrested.
Jackson confessed his guilt immediately after the assault Tuesday night, but police resumed their questioning a few hours after Trotsky died. He was a police prisoner in the hospital where Trotsky died, having been severely beaten by Trotsky’s guards.
In his first statement, Jackson said he decided to kill Trotsky after being “disillusioned” by the Russian’s recently expressed political views. Police added that Jackson was not a Belgian, as he asserted, but an American citizen formerly of New York City. He had claimed at first that his name was Jacques Van den Dreschd and that he was born of Belgian parents in Tehran, Iran.
Albert Goldman of New York, American attorney for Leon Trotsky, said at Chicago Wednesday night that he talked by telephone with the Trotsky guards and that they told him that Jackson admitted he had been ordered by the GPU* to kill Trotsky or forfeit the life of his mother in Russia. Goldman said also that Jackson “married Sylvia Ageloff under orders from the GPU to get close to Trotsky.”
Jackson entered Mexico posing as a Canadian, and police said many letters in English, French and Russian were found in his hotel room.
Police also detained Sylvia Ageloff of Brooklyn, N.Y., whom they said was Jackson’s sweetheart, but whom Trotsky’s associates said they thought was Jackson’s wife.
Miss Ageloff said she was unaware of any assassination plot and wept as she recalled that she had introduced Jackson to Trotsky. She said she was a sister of Ruth Ageloff, a former secretary of the exiled Russian. She met Jackson in Paris two years ago, she said, adding that he always seemed to be plentifully supplied with money. She told police he once gave her $3,000, saying it was left to him by his mother when she died.
Samuel Ageloff, father of Sylvia and Ruth, denied in New York reports that the latter had been a Trotsky secretary and said he did not know Jackson.
Marvel at Fight for Life
Trotsky’s wife, two bodyguards and hospital aides were at Trotsky’s bedside in Green Cross Hospital when he died. Surgeons marveled that he had fought death off for so long. It was just getting dark, and a drizzling rain was falling outside, when word came that all hope was gone.
Mrs. Trotsky was crouching on a cushion on the floor beside Trotsky’s bed. She rose every few minutes to touch his legs to see if they were still warm. He had been in a coma. Once he spoke to his secretary, Joseph Hansen, of his wife: “Take care of her. She has been with me many years.” Earlier he had pointed to his heart and said: “I feel here that this time they have succeeded.”
Mrs. Trotsky wept as surgeons injected a solution into Trotsky’s heart in a last effort to save him.
As soon as Trotsky died, a guard of 100 policemen was put around the building, and extra guards were assigned to Jackson’s room. The hospital was closed to visitors and Mrs. Trotsky was left alone in the death room.
The man who had been so formidable in life lay on his cot in death under the glare of a single hanging electric light. His body hardly raised the sheets of his cot. Except for his goatee, he looked somewhat like a large wax doll.
Mrs. Trotsky sat in an armchair in a corner while the Mexican sculptor, Ignacio Asunsolo, made a death mask. After that, Trotsky’s body was removed to the chapel of a private funeral home to lie in state.
Honor Guard Posted
President Lazaro Cardenas, who gave Trotsky refuge after Norway expelled him at Russia’s behest, sent Gen. Hernandez Lamont, a member of his official staff, and three aides to the chapel to pay Mexico’s respects. The officers took a turn at standing guard of honor.
Lamont said he brought a “personal message of condolence from the president” for Mrs. Trotsky. She went to the home of friends to spend Wednesday night.
Funeral plans were uncertain. Some of Trotsky’s aides said burial “very likely” would be in Mexico City, but definite plans had not been made.
In the chapel, Trotsky’s face showed through a glass cover of the casket. A satin coverlet extended to the chest, over which his hands lay folded. A bandage still remained on his head, but a deep gash showed over the right ear where the assassin had driven the pick into his brain.
Crowd Files Past Bier
Despite the late hour at which the body reached the chapel, a crowd gathered and moved slowly through the chapel for the remainder of the night. In death, the Mexican public saw much more of Trotsky than it did in life. He was a virtual prisoner in his own walled-in house in nearby Coyoacan – mortally fearful of “death at the hands of Stalin.”
Police stood guard inside and outside the chapel.
In a statement issued before Trotsky’s death, Hansen asserted that the assassin was an agent of the Russian secret police. He said that Trotsky, old and small as he was, had fought his attacker valiantly. Furniture in his study and a Dictaphone were smashed and the whole room was in disorder. Though his brain had been pierced deep. Trotsky had emerged from his study as guards ran to his aid.
As the guards put him on the floor, Trotsky warned them not to harm Jackson because he might have an important story to tell. Trotsky was quoted as saying as he lay on the floor:
Jackson shot me with a revolver. I am seriously wounded. I feel that this time it is the end. Jackson was a member either of the GPU* (the Russian secret police) or a Fascist organization – most likely the GPU. I am close to death from the blow of a political assassin. We had entered the room to talk French statistics…
Police officers are shown in Mexico City exhibiting the short handled pickaxe used by the assailant of Trotsky, who blamed Josef Stalin, Russian dictator, through the dreaded GPU*, for the deed.
