Hunting the President

Mel Ayton has a master's degree in history from Durham University and is a former Fulbright Teacher in the United States. He is a former deputy school principal and college lecturer in the UK. Ayton has worked as a historical consultant for the BBC, NBC News, National Geographic Channel and the Discovery Times Channel and appeared in the television documentaries, CIA - Mind Control (NBC, 2006), CIA Secret Experiments (National Geographic Channel, 2009) and Conspiracy Test: The Robert Kennedy Assassination (Discovery Channel, 2008) Ayton was interviewed for the PBS documentary 100 Days That Defined Modern History - The Assassinations of Martin Luther King & Robert F. Kennedy, broadcast in 2024.   Ayton has appeared in television programmes produced by the BBC’s Newsnight and the UK’s Channel 4 News and appeared as a guest on numerous US radio talk shows including: The Peter Boyles Show, The Dennis Miller Show, The Michael Medved Show, The Lars Larson Show, The Janet Mefferd Show, The Brian Thomas Show, Bill Martinez Live, The Paul Ibbetson Show, The Schilling Show, In The Market with Janet Parshall, WDUN’s Morning News with Bill and Joel, The Steve Cochran Show, Ireland’s Newstalk with Sean Moncrieff, and Canada’s Ted Woloshyn ShowMel Times Channel, 2008). He was also a guest on Fox News’ Hannity show in 2009 and 2014.  Ayton’s books and articles have received praise from numerous media outlets including Fox News, The Michael Medved Show, The Peter Boyles Show, The Daily Express, The Daily Mail, USA Today, The New York Observer, TIME magazine, The Pittsburgh Tribune, The New York Post, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper and George Mason University's History News Network. His work has also been favourably reviewed by leading US non-fiction authors Max Holland, Gus Russo, Dan Moldea, Mark Olshaker, John Douglas, Professor John McAdams and Daniel Pipes.   Mel Ayton’s book The Forgotten Terrorist was acclaimed by Harvard Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz who wrote a Foreword to a second edition in 2019. In December 2011 California’s Deputy Attorney General, Jamie Fuster, requested Ayton’s assistance in preparing a brief challenging Robert Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan’s claim that he is innocent of the murder. The California courts eventually dismissed Sirhan’s plea of innocence in 2015.

Praise for The Forgotten Terrorist  “The Forgotten Terrorist University of Nebraska Press, (2019). This is an important and extensively documented account of the motivations and steps that led Palestinian American extremist Sirhan Sirhan to assassinate of Senator Robert F. Kennedy on June 5, 1968, which in retrospect (according to the author) can be considered as ‘the first act of the tragedy that culminated in 9/11’.  Sirhan’s pathway into violent extremism fits the profile of homegrown Islamist terrorists. --Joshua Sinai, Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol 11, No 5 (2017)   “Mel Ayton (is) one of the few analysts who has fully grasped the crime’s Middle East connection…. Far from being a ‘maniacally absurd’ crime, as Newsweek concluded, the Robert Kennedy assassination was in fact an eminently political act. It was the first ‘blowback’ attack the United States suffered as a result of its Middle East policies.”-- Stephen Kinzer, The Guardian, Shot Heard Round The World, 13 June 2008  “Mel Ayton (is) a writer I’ve found to be a valuable debunker of unwarranted conspiracy theorizing. He reminds us with copious quotations in (his articles) how repeatedly and explicitly Sirhan made clear why he targeted RFK: because Sirhan hated the state of Israel and hated RFK’s support for Israel.”--Ron Rosenbaum, “I went To See Bobby and Found It Moving, Somehow Inadequate, Observer, 20 November 2006  “Mel Ayton has a well-deserved reputation for doing the near-impossible:  writing about controversial history (including conspiracy theories) in a sober but imaginative way, combining reliable accounts with intellectually stimulating arguments. I highly recommend his work.”--Rick Shenkman, Publisher, History News Network   “I am a recognized expert on the murder of Senator Kennedy, but I learned a great deal from The Forgotten Terrorist, especially about Sirhan’s family background and his ‘Palestinian nationalism.’ The exquisite detail contained in this well-written, wonderfully researched work makes it a must-read for anyone studying this far from open-and-shut case.”--Dan Moldea, author of The Killing of Robert Kennedy: An Investigation of Motive, Means, and Opportunity.   “Ayton is an excellent writer, and his text bristles and probes, leading the reader on a fascinating, if ultimately depressing journey detailing the assassin’s many obsessions and final fatal decision to silence Sen. Kennedy during the deeply troubled 1968 presidential election season…. Ayton both reviews established ideas, and gives the reader an in-depth analysis of Sirhan's state of mind (as much as can be determined) leading up to and following the assassination. It is a riveting enterprise that history students will find intriguing… Mel Ayton presents a compelling examination of the convicted assassin's motivations, his state of mind, and the mountain of evidence used to denounce and imprison him.”--Craig Hendricks, The History Teacher, Vol: 41 No: 2 February 2008  “(Mel Ayton) is doing a fabulous job of setting history right.” --David Aaronovitch, The Times, journalist and author of Voodoo Histories – The Role of the Conspiracy Theory In Shaping Modern History.  Praise for Hunting The President (2014)  “The only book of its kind and certainly the best book of its kind...A fascinating and very important book which I heartily recommend... it’s easy to figure out why Mel Ayton’s writing has drawn nearly universal praise in the past and for his present volume Hunting The President... Even for people who know American history; even for people who have a special expertise in the history of presidential assassinations; you’re going to learn a great deal from (this) new book.”  --Michael Medved, The Michael Medved Show   “We tend to think of attempts on the president’s life as relatively rare — with John Hinckley’s shooting of President Ronald Reagan in 1981 as the last truly life-threatening incident. But the new book “Hunting the President: Threats, Plots, and Assassination Attempts — from FDR to Obama” by Mel Ayton shows that both threats and attempts are far more common than we know. Every president, regardless of party or ideology, has thousands of threats on file at any moment, with usually around 400 or so regarded as serious”. --Larry Getlen, New York Post  "I love the book...it's a great read."-- Peter Boyles, The Peter Boyles Show,     "(Mel Ayton) has done a lot of research. It's a fascinating book...a terrific story."-- Rob Schilling, The Schilling Show  “Beyond recounting assassination attempts, Ayton explores the relationships between the Secret Service and the presidents it has protected. And he debunks conventional wisdom about presidential assassins' motivations. Almost always “failures” at life, most are driven not by “deep political convictions” but by “a deep desire for fame and notoriety,” he writes, citing academic and Secret Service research. Ayton also notes Secret Service and congressional concerns about media accounts encouraging “copycat” assassins, as well as the media argument about the public's right to know. Readers who pick up Hunting the President will take away much they didn't know before about many who've stalked presidents with murder in mind”. --Alan Wallace , Pittsburgh Tribune Review  Praise for Plotting To Kill The President 2017  “Mel Ayton has a well-deserved reputation for doing the near-impossible:  writing about controversial history (including conspiracy theories) in a sober but imaginative way, combining reliable accounts with intellectually stimulating arguments. I highly recommend his work.”— Rick Shenkman, Publisher, History News Network   “Mel Ayton’s Hunting the President received widespread acclaim in 2014 because he was the first journalist to reveal many previously unknown threats and well-planned assassination attempts against the lives of American Presidents from FDR to Barack Obama.  In his sequel, Plotting To Kill The President, Ayton once again provides the reader with shocking revelations of previously unknown attempts to murder America’s Chief Executives from the time of the Founding Fathers to the Great Depression.  Amazingly, Ayton has found important information hitherto ignored or undiscovered in the vast available body of work about this subject and cites them persuasively.  Most shocking are the new revelations about the assassination attempts against Presidents Arthur, Hayes, Cleveland, Harrison, Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, and Hoover.  Ayton also reveals how Presidents and their aides constantly tried to keep the assassination attempts secret lest they lead to ‘copycat’ threats.    Mel Ayton has produced one of the most fascinating collections of stories about how U.S. Presidents have faced danger”.  --Dan E. Moldea, Author, The Hoffa Wars and The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy, among other books.     Praise for RFK and JFK Assassination Articles  “Mel Ayton’s research on this difficult question: ‘Who was responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy?’ is excellent. --ColonelManuel Chavez – Former US Air Force Intelligence Officer assigned to the CIA’s office in Miami from 1960 to 1964.  “Mel Ayton has a well-deserved reputation for doing the near-impossible:  writing about controversial history (including conspiracy theories) in a sober but imaginative way, combining reliable accounts with intellectually stimulating arguments. I highly recommend his work.”-- Rick Shenkman, Publisher, History News Network.    “(Mel Ayton) is doing a fabulous job of setting history right.”-- David Aaronovitch, Columnist for The Times and author of Voodoo Histories – The Role of the Conspiracy Theory In Shaping Modern History.  “Mel Ayton (is) one of the few analysts who has fully grasped the crime’s Middle East connection….. Far from being a ‘maniacally absurd’ crime, as Newsweek concluded, the Robert Kennedy assassination was in fact an eminently political act. It was the first ‘blowback’ attack the United States suffered as a result of its Middle East policies.”-- Stephen Kinzer,The Guardian, Shot Heard Round The World, 13 June 2008  “The greatest riddle in any of these high-profile assassinations is motive. Thanks to Mel Ayton, the RFK killing can now be removed from that list of mysteries.”--Gus Russo, author of The Outfit and Supermob  “Mel Ayton has accomplished something that no one writing about the RFK assassination has ever achieved before. By combining a judicious review of the forensic and eyewitness evidence with a firm grasp of the historical context, Ayton has finally made sense of the 1968 killing.”-- Max Holland, author of The Kennedy Assassination Tapes and publisher of Washington Decoded  “Mel Ayton presents a compelling examination of the convicted (RFK) assassin's motivations, his state of mind, and the mountain of evidence used to denounce and imprison him.”-- Craig Hendricks, The History Teacher, Volume: 41 No: 2, February 2008.  “I have read some of your…articles about Sirhan's many conspiracy theories, which demonstrate the wealth of your research as to the RFK murder.”--California Deputy Attorney General Jaime Fuster, December 13, 2011“Mel Ayton [is] a writer I’ve found to be a valuable debunker of unwarranted conspiracy theorizing. He reminds us with copious quotations in [his articles] how repeatedly and explicitly Sirhan made clear why he targeted R.F.K.: because Sirhan hated the state of Israel and hated R.F.K.’s support for Israel.”—Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Observer, 20 November 2006“Important and extensively documented. . . .  The Unaffiliated Terrorist is especially pertinent to understanding current lone wolf terrorists, as it discusses leading forensic psychology theories to explain Sirhan’s possible mental state and motivations.”— Joshua Sinai, Perspectives on Terrorism“I am a recognized expert on the 1968 murder of Senator Robert Kennedy. Thus, I say with considerable authority that the exquisite detail contained in Mel Ayton’s well-written, wonderfully researched work makes it must-reading for anyone interested in this case. Step by step, Ayton demolishes the false claims by conspiracy theorists who allege that Sirhan Sirhan was a hypnotically controlled assassin, programmed to kill and programmed to forget about it. Using his encyclopaedic knowledge of the assassination investigations, Ayton reveals how the confessed-and-convicted assassin’s defenders managed to persuade a large portion of the American public into believing that a second gunman was responsible for the senator’s death. Nobody knows more about the issues revolving around the RFK murder case than Mel Ayton. Nobody.”— Dan E. Moldea, author of The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy: An Investigation of Motive, Means, and Opportunity  “The 1968 assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan may well be one of the most transforming events of the last third of the 20th century.... Mel Ayton documents the elements that contributed to Sirhan’s hatred of anyone or anything associated positively with Israel or Jews.”--Harvard Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz, Foreword to the 2019 edition of The Forgotten Terrorist.