Lt. Colonel Lewis Lee Hawkins (August 8, 1930 – June 2, 1973) was a United States military aide to Iran who was assassinated.[1][2] Vahid Afrakhteh, a member of the Mojahedin M.L. (Marxist–Leninist) and later a founding member of Peykar, was captured and confessed to the assassination.[3][4][5][6] Some sources attribute the assassination to the People's Mujahedin of Iran.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13]
Hawkins was born to Herman and Mary Hawkins in Chicago on August 8, 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 the deputy chief[8] in the 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.
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.[14]
According to an American military advisor, Hawkins was killed "by an Iranian terrorist".[15] The assassination seemed to have been motivated by political considerations. Although there were two witnesses, the 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.[16]
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 (a Marxist group that broke off from Mujahedin-e-Khalq), stated that he personally killed Col. Lewis Lee Hawkins in Tehran in 1973.[17][18] The 2006 U.S. State Department report blamed "a Marxist element of the MEK" for killing American security advisers in Iran in the 1970s;[19] however, the 2007 report blamed these killings on the MEK itself.[20] The State Department reports in 2010 and 2011 reported that the MEK assassinated Hawkins.[10][21]
Nevertheless, some sources have said the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) was responsible.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13]
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
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
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
