Murder in Mexico City: The Assassination of Leon Trotsky
About this episode
The episode discusses the assassination of Leon Trotsky in 1940, featuring insights from authors H. Keith Melton and Nigel West.
For those of you who have visited the International Spy Museum, you may be familiar with one of our most prized artifacts, the ice ax used to assassinate Leon Trotsky in 1940. Trotsky was the operational mastermind of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and when Vladimir Lenin died, many assumed Trotsky would succeed him as the central figure of the revolution. Joseph Stalin had other plans. What followed was a bitter rivalry that ended in Trotsky's demise. Our guest today, H. Keith Melton, not only tracked down the murder weapon but, alongside his colleague Nigel West, wrote the most comprehensive account of the plot and the assassination to date. H. Keith and Nigel join guest host Dr. Mark Jacobson to discuss their book, The Assassination of Leon Trotsky: Espionage, Scandal, and the Crime of the Century, ahead of their live program coming up on August 6, here at the International Spy Museum. Subscribe to Sasha's Substack, HUMINT, to get more intelligence stories: https://sashaingber.substack.com/ For more information about the International Spy Museum, visit: https://www.spymuseum.org/ And if you have feedback or want to hear about a particular topic, you can reach us…
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