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For  a year, Machiavelli was ambassador to Cesare Borgia, conqueror of Rome.  He describes one event that “is worthy of note and of imitation by others.”  Rome had been disorderly, and Cesare Borgia decided he needed to make the people “peaceful and obedient to his rule.”  Therefore, “he appointed Messer Remirro de Orco, a curel and able man, to whom he gave the fullest authority” and who, in a short time, made Rome “orderly and united.”  But Cesare Borgia knew his policy had aroused hatred so,

“In order to purge the minds of the people and to whin them over completely, he resolved to show that if any cruelty had taken place it was not by his orders, but through the harsh disposition of his minister.  And having found the opportunity he had him cut in half and placed one morning in the public square at Cesena with a piece of wood and blood-stained knife by his side.”

In recent American history, we have become familiar with the technique of rulers letting subordinates do the dirty work, which they can later disclaim.  As a result of the Watergate scandals in the Nixon administration (a series of crimes committed by underlings in his behalf), a number of his people (former CIA agents, White House aides, and even the attourney-generral) were sent to prison.  But Nixon himself, although he was forced to resign his office, escaped criminal prosecution, arranging to be pardoned when his vice-president, Gerald Ford, became president.  Nixon retired in prosperity and, in a few years, became a kind of elder statesman, a Godfather of politics, looked to for sage advice.

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

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