Monday, May. 20, 1929

Assassins!

To the State Theatre of Kovno last week drove the limousine of Professor Augustine Valdemaras, Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, and, since 1926, Dictator. The limousine stopped in the forecourt of the theatre, an enclosed garden. Out stepped the curt, bristly-pompadoured Professor-Prime Minister, with his wife, his aide-de-camp, his small grandnephew.

At that instant shadowy figures sprang from the shrubbery. Two grenades hurtled through the air, fell beside the car. When they did not explode, a fusillade of shots rang out. Lieut. Gudinas, the aide, fell, mortally wounded as he shielded Professor Valdemaras with his own body. The small grandnephew was shot in the stomach. A passing young girl was hit in the leg. "Furthermore," wired an agitated Lithuanian correspondent, "one of the bullets penetrated Mme. Valdemaras' clock."

The assailants escaped leaving no trace but some empty cartridge shells and rumors of a Polish accent. Professor Valdemaras was unhurt, carried his wounded little grandnephew into the theatre lobby, later sat by the dying child's bedside all night long. Early in the morning, the Professor-Prime Minister returned wearily to begin another day's work at the Foreign Office.