"Down with Washington!"

As the first flecks of dawn came up over the low hills around Beirut one morning last week, a swarthy, bullet-headed Armenian trudged with leaden steps over the rough courtyard in front of the High Commissariat Building. Softly he crooned a Turkish song: "I have waited for thee, but thou hast not come." Before a crude, hastily constructed wooden structure, he halted. Above the planking, blackly outlined against the grey dawn, dangled a loose rope. Around the platform stood silent native policemen, Syrian officials. They had gathered to witness the hanging of Mejardich Karayan, the 29-year-old Armenian assassin of U. S. Consul General J. Theodore Marriner (TIME, Oct. 25).

Believing that Marriner had refused him a visa to return to the U. S., the Armenian emptied a revolver into the diplomat as he left his automobile in front of the U. S. Consulate five weeks ago. Actually, Marriner had granted the visa but the letter informing Karayan had not been delivered because of a change of address. Condemned to death after a court had judged him sane, Karayan was refused a last minute reprieve.

As the light streaks widened in the east, the young Armenian climbed the scaffold, calmly told his grim-faced audience that "an insult motivated my crime." In an ironic gesture he willed the revolver he used to the U. S. Congress. Then, with hands strapped, hood over his eyes, he pierced the chill silence with a shout, "A bas Washington!" (Down with Washington!). The trap was sprung and his body plumped down through the opening, jerked to a sudden stop as the rope became taut.

For two hours the body dangled from the scaffold as Beirut natives halted their early morning tasks to gaze on the grisly scene. Women milled about, bargaining with guards for a piece of the hanging rope, chattering that it was the best protection against barrenness.

As the assassin went to his death in Beirut, the flag-draped casket bearing the body of Consul Marriner was met with military honors in Boston harbor. From there it was taken to Marriner's home in Portland, Me., where three days later it was buried.

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