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FAMOUS & INFAMOUS VICTIMS OF POISON: Some proven, others speculative

The sudden death of powerful individuals has often been accompanied by suspicion and charges of poison.   In the past, when toxins were not detectable, all that needed to be looked for was a person with motive.   Anyone with a motive was considered a potential assassin. In more modern times, anyone dying under suspicious circumstances without an autopsy can be the rumored (or perhaps real) victim of poison. (Author's comments in italics).

Augustus Caesar.   Suetonius claims that Augustus, in his eighties, was done in by Augusta. He claimed that she had smeared poison on the pears on a tree the Princeps was particularly fond of. (Suetonius is often referred to in historiography as a scandal-monger -- it seems unlikely that there was an overwhelming need to assassinate a man in his eighties)

Socrates. Actually he was poisoned by his own hand. Found guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens, he was forced to drink hemlock.

Claudius Caesar.   Another of Suetonius' poisoned emperors. He apparently succumbed to poisoned mushrooms served by his wife to make room for her son Nero.

Zachary Taylor.   Rumors abounded for several years that this American President was done in by pro-slavery forces with either strychnine or arsenic. Recent forensic evidence suggests he was poisoned not by enemies but by the Salmonella he picked up from the potato salad at the dedication of the Washington monument. The only American president known to have died of food poisoning.

John Paul I (Albino Luciano).  The shortest reigning pope in four centuries, the youngest pope at the time death of his in 350 years and the first pope to die unattended since 1600, his death caused a great deal of speculation. The matter was complicated further by the Vatican's refusal to perform an autopsy, and the official story of his discovery not matching the reality.At least one author has woven a complicated conspiracy theory involving the Vatican Bank, Jesuits, a FreeMason group called P-2, the fanatic Catholic group Opus Dei and most of the Roman Curia.

Pius XI (Achille Ratti).   Another 20th Century papal death.   This pope was rumored to be on the verge of condemning fascism in 1939 when he died rather suddenly.   Poisoning theorists point out that his physician was a relative of the Italian Foreign Minister.

Alexander VI (Borgia). This Renaissance pope was the father of Lucretia Borgia -- one of history's most infamous poisoners. Alexander VI was reputed to achieved his office by literally poisoning the opposition. Then, according to Onofrio Panvino, the official chronicler of the Popes, he poisoned three cardinals and numerous church notables to keep them from interfering with the succession of his son, Cesare Borgia, as the next pope. But Alexander died before his task was complete. At his funeral rumors abounded that he had poisoned himself accidentally by drinking a doctored glass of wine intended for an opponent at a dinner party on a country estate.

Napoleon Bonaparte.   The acquiescence of the relatively young Napoleon to his exile on Saint Helena, and his early death are a matter of some speculation. At least one author has gone so far as to suggest that Napoleon's death was the result of deliberate arsenic poisoning on the part of the British government.

Warren Harding.   Mrs. Harding gets accused of this one. Harding was said to have fallen afoul of his wife because of his marital infidelities   At the same time the President, who was on a cross-country tour, had told his wife of the Teapot Dome scandal about to erupt. She decided to do him in to save him the pain of the scandal while they were in San Francisco. The doctors present agreed he died of a stroke.

Louis XIV.   The Sun King died of natural causes, but he was the rumored object of another type of chemical potion, love philtres   purchased by the Marquise de Montespan.   So widespread was poisons in Louis's reign that in April 1679, 319 writs of arrest were handed down by a special tribunal in the infamous "Affair of the Poisoners.   Thirty four were executed, four sent to the galleys and another thirty-four sent in exiles. Among the convicted was Catherin Deshayes, Madame Monvoisin, several nieces of Cardinal Mazarin and assorted princesses, dukes, marquesses and other royalty.

Rasputin.  The "Mad Monk" actually died from repeated gunshot wounds and being dumped in the frozen River Neva on December 29, 1916. But Prince Felix Yussopov and other conspirators had tried to poison him first with massive doses of cyanide. Rasputin's inhuman resistance was most likely due to a common practice in the Russian courts of taking progressively larger doses of popular poisons to acclimate his system and build up resistance.

Erwin Rommel.   As commander of the famed Afrika Corps, the "Desert Fox" had captured the imagination of the German people. Then in 1944 Rommel was implicated in the July 20th plot to assassinate Hitler.   Unwilling to have Germany's greatest hero identified as a co-conspirator, the Fuhrer gave him a choice. Either Rommel would be subjected to a court-martial, found guilty and sentenced to death and his family would be disgraced, or he could select death by poison.   In the event of the latter, his family would be untouched and his reputation unmarred. Rommel selected the latter means.

Adolf Hitler.   There is still some controversy over the method of Hitler's death though nearly all the eyewitnesses agree he shot himself, possibly biting on a cyanide capsule at the same time for insurance.  But Hitler was the target of at least two aborted poisoning attempts by his Minister of Armaments and War Production, Albert Speer.   After his release form Spandau Prison, Speer claimed that he had soaked a cigar in water with the intent of using the powerful alkaloids released by the nicotine to kill Hitler by serving it in his tea. Speer also claimed that he had secured a toxic agent he intended to introduce into the ventilation system of the Fuhrerbunker.

Saddam Hussein.   There is no evidence that anyone has ever actually attempted to poison the Iraqi strong man. But the "Butcher of Baghdad" is taking no chances.  He has returned to the tradition of having a food taster.   For several years this post was held by the son of Saddam's chef, a particularly Machiavellian way of assuring the chef's loyalty. The position became vacant when Udai, Saddam's son, killed the food taster in an argument.   Who has the post now is not certain, though it is not likely to be a high demand job.