Shooting at Uncle Shad

Four score and ten years ago, a gunman jumped onto the stage at Ford's Theater in Washington, and fled, to be hunted down as an assassin. Last week in the African nation founded by American freedmen, one Paul Dunbar cast himself in the role of John Wilkes Booth; he was not playacting.

Liberia's diplomatic set had gathered at the Executive Mansion to celebrate President William Vacanarat Shadrach Tubman's election to a third term. They were all watching a home movie about "Uncle Shad" when Dunbar rushed into the darkened hall, leaped to the stage and fired his .38-caliber six-shooter at President Tubman. His first shot missed, and hit a Liberian Congressman in the leg. The second and third shots rang out as two police inspectors rushed the gunman; both were wounded. By this time the assembled dignitaries were scurrying out of the hall. Women in evening gowns fled, leaving their high-heeled shoes behind. Men broke for the exits, leaving not only their top hats but. in many cases, on this hot night, their tail coats. President Tubman, unhurt and dignified as ever, did not flee.

The cops who overpowered the gunman had no trouble identifying him: he was a ballistics specialist on the force before being sacked last year. Dunbar was also, it seemed, a member of the Independent True Whig Party, which lost out to Tubman's True Whig Party in the elections last month. Police rounded up 28 opposition-party stalwarts and set out to find David Coleman, their national chairman. At Coleman's rubber farm 30 miles from Monrovia, the posse was greeted with a volley of machine-gun fire. Two of the expedition were killed, four others wounded. The cops set fire to Coleman's house as its defenders disappeared among the rubber trees. There was no sign of Coleman.

The man who ran against Tubman on the Independent True Whig ticket was an ex-President of Liberia named Edwin Barclay. Last week police surrounded his marble house, but they did not lay a hand on him. After all, his cousin, Antoinette Padmore Tubman, is Liberia's First Lady.

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