Map of Where American Ambassadors Have Been Killed

I made a map of the six (five confirmed and one possible) ambassadors who have been killed while on duty.  There are certain geographical and other themes with the murders.


View Map of Where American Ambassadors Have Been Killed in a larger map

While the first murdered ambassador, John Gordon Mein, was killed in the Western Hemisphere, the other five were all killed in the Eastern Hemisphere.

• Four of the five in were in the Greater Middle East Pivot Zone.  The one exception, Cyprus, is arguably part of this pivot zone.  The murder of the ambassador occurred two months prior the Turkish invasion of Cyprus which itself was a result of ethnic Turkish versus ethnic Greek violence on the island.
• The five confirmed killers' ideologies can be broken down as: 3 leftist, 2 ultra-nationalist, 1 Islamist.
• The death of the American ambassador to Pakistan is a bit of a mystery.  Arnold L. Raphel died in a plane crash that killed Pakistan's President Zia ul Haq, the Pakistani Joint Cheifs of Staff, as well as other senior Pakistani officials.  Many of these officials were involved with Pakistan's nuclear program.  The two leading suspects, if this was indeed an assassination, are the Soviet Union (which sought revenge for Pakistan and America's support of Afghan rebels) or a certain country who has gone to extremes before to prevent its enemies from developing a nuclear program.