" I say no man ever before slew his friend mouthful of words.”
“And I say it has happened many times before. Consider the Assassinations, Thomas, you who are something of a critic of historical theses. Consider whether the Heroes have not more often been assassinated by friends than by enemies; consider whether some of them have not even been assassinated with their own consent.”
“I don’t consent.”
“If everything else has failed, if a program has fallen for such a silly nothing, if the hero would make a better hero when dead, then he was made a dead hero by his friends, for his own sake and the sake of his program. I could name a dozen clear cases of this, but I won’t; strong partisan feelings are still involved in some of them after the centuries. - "

― R.A. Lafferty , Past Master