Lewis Lee Hawkins

Lt. Colonel Lewis Lee Hawkins (8 August 1930 – 2 June 1973) was a United States military aid to Iran who was assassinated.[1][2] Vahid Afrakhteh, a founding member of Peykar, was captured and confessed to the assassination.[3][4][5][6]

Early life

Hawkins was born to Herman and Mary Hawkins in Chicago on 8 August 1930. He graduated from Plymouth High School and enlisted in South Carolina Presbyterian college on a basketball scholarship. He graduated in 1952 and joined the United States Army as a second Lieutenant. Hawkins later obtained a master's degree in Business Administration from Syracuse University.

In the 1970s Hawkins became the Director of the Department of Finance at U.S. Army Finance School at Indiana. In 1972 Hawkins was assigned to be in U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group to the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces in Iran. He lived with his wife and children in the Abbasabad district.

Assassination

On June 2, 1973 Hawkins was walking to the street corner to be picked up by his driver when two terrorists riding on a motorcycle shot him at point blank range, killing him instantly. Hawkins' wife rushed outside to see his body in a pool of blood. The terrorists immediately fled the scene and were not captured.[7][8]

According to an American military advisor, Hawkins was killed "by an Iranian terrorist".[9] The assassination seemed to have been motivated by political considerations. Although there were two witnesses, assassins were wearing motorcycle helmets and could not be identified. Some GOI officials believed the group responsible to be left-wing and Iraq-supported, while others suspected Mujahedin-e-Khalq.[10]

On May 11, 1976, the Washington Post reported that in January of that year, "nine terrorists convicted of murdering the three American colonels… were executed. The leader of the group, Vahid Afrakhteh, one of the founders of Peykar (Marxist group that broke off from Mujahedin-e-Khalq) stated that he personally killed col. Lewis Lee Hawkins in Tehran in 1973.[11][12] The Country Reports issued a statement saying "A Marxist element of the MEK murdered several of the Shah's U.S. security advisers prior to the Islamic Revolution."[13] Despite this, some sources have attributed these assassinations to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq.[14][15][16]

References
  1. Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr. (2013). Mujahedin-E Khalq (MEK) Shackled by a Twisted History. University of Baltimore College of Public Affairs. p. 17. ISBN 978-0615783840.
  2. Anthony H. Cordesman, Sam Khazai (2014). Iraq in Crisis. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 213. ISBN 1442228563.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  3. Appeasing the Ayatollahs and Suppressing Democracy: U.S. Policy and the Iranian Opposition : a White Paper,Iran Policy Committee, page 57
  4. The Mystery of Contemporary Iran. The most notable actions of the Marxist Mojahedin were assassinations of Savak general, of two American military advisers, and a failed attempt against an American diplomat, all in 1975
  5. Camp Ashraf: Iraqi Obligations and State Department Accountability : Joint Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, First Session, December 7, 2011. Referred to in the Iranian press as the "Iranian People's Strugglers", and later known as Peykar, this group led by Tagui Shahram, Vahid Arakhteh and Bahram Aram was one o several underground groups waging a covert war against the Shah's secret police, SAVAK. Afrakhteh, who later confessed to the killings o Americans, was executed
  6. Iran Almanac and Book of Facts, Volumen 15. Ten terrorists were sentenced to death... The condemned terrorists were Vahid Afrakhteh... The terroirsts were charged with the murders of Brigadier-general Reza Zandipur, United States Colonels Hawkins, Paul Shaffer and ack Turner, the U.S. Embassy's translator Hassan Hossnan
  7. http://iagenweb.org/boards/wright/obituaries/index.cgi?read=150544
  8. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/76062448/lewis-lee-hawkins
  9. https://www.scribd.com/document/82798291/American-Killings
  10. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v27/d18
  11. Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr. (2013). Mujahedin-E Khalq (MEK) Shackled by a Twisted History. University of Baltimore College of Public Affairs. pp. 17 (p.A9). ISBN 978-0615783840.
  12. Arash Reisinezhad (2018). The Shah of Iran, the Iraqi Kurds, and the Lebanese Shia. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 8. ASIN B07FBB6L8Y.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  13. Chapter 8 -- Foreign Terrorist Organizations
  14. "Chapter 6 -- Terrorist Organizations". www.state.gov. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
  15. Combs, Cindy C.; Slann, Martin W. (2009). Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Revised Edition. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 9781438110196. Retrieved 11 September 2018.
  16. https://apnews.com/f8cd86c1a6de470781c8b5f37ef70f5f
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