The Dictator's Playbook, Chapter 1: The Vacancy
Rule number one of becoming a dictator: check your boss's travel calendar. No, seriously. Two of the five men in this series took over entire countries while the person in charge was abroad. One was at a summit in Singapore. The other was in Turkey, taking the waters for his health. (Yes, a king ran his country's succession plan around a spa trip.) Nobody handed these guys a throne. They just noticed the owner was out of office. Hitler already hogs every dictator documentary ever made. So this series is about the others: Idi Amin, Muammar Gaddafi, Joseph Stalin, Saddam Hussein and Kim Il Sung. Five men, five completely different routes to the top, and one very uncomfortable pattern underneath all of them. Grab a snack. Chapter 1 is about the climb. The Out-of-Office Coup Let's start with Uganda, 1971. Idi Amin was a former boxing champion who spent most of his early army career as a sergeant. Then independence arrived, and President Milton Obote started promot...