Huey Long

U.S. Senator from Louisiana and former governor poised to challenge Franklin D. Roosevelt for the 1936 Democratic presidential nomination — shot at the Louisiana State Capitol on September 8, 1935, and died two days later. The widely accepted assassin, Dr. Carl Austin Weiss, was killed on the spot by Long's bodyguards in a fusillade of 30 to 60-plus rounds.

Field	Details
Full Name	Huey Pierce Long Jr.
Born	August 30, 1893
Died	September 10, 1935
Age at Death	42
Location of Death	Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Cause of Death	Internal bleeding from a single torso gunshot wound (with disputed accounts of additional bodyguard fire)
Official Ruling	Homicide
Nationality	American
Killed on US Soil	Yes — Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Alleged Intelligence Connection	None established. Conspiracy theories suggest political opponents and Roosevelt administration figures, but no intelligence service has been credibly tied to the killing.
Victim Was Intel Employee	No
Category	Political Figure

Assessment: UNCERTAIN

Huey Long's death is included here because he was a sitting U.S. Senator and a serious political threat to a sitting U.S. president — and because the official account of the assassination has been challenged repeatedly over the past 90 years by historians, forensic researchers, and Long's own family. The historical consensus is that Dr. Carl Austin Weiss shot Long for personal and political reasons. A persistent minority view — supported by partial forensic re-examinations and a 1992 exhumation of Weiss — holds that Long may actually have been killed by ricocheting bullets from his own bodyguards. There is no documentary evidence implicating any U.S. or foreign intelligence service. This case predates the modern intelligence community (the OSS was founded in 1942; the CIA in 1947), and the entry is preserved here to document the political-assassination context, not to assert intelligence involvement.

Circumstances of Death

According to the widely accepted historical account, on the evening of September 8, 1935, Long was walking through a marble hallway on the first floor of the new Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge after a special legislative session he had personally directed. He was surrounded by his armed bodyguards, including members of the Louisiana State Police.

Dr. Carl Austin Weiss Sr., a 28-year-old Baton Rouge ear, nose, and throat physician, allegedly approached Long, drew an FN Model 1910 .32 ACP pistol, and fired a single round into Long's torso. Long staggered away. Long's bodyguards immediately drew their weapons and fired on Weiss, striking him with what contemporary accounts described as between 30 and more than 60 bullets. Weiss died on the spot.

Long was rushed to Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium. He underwent emergency surgery performed by physicians who, according to later critics, were not the most senior surgeons available in Louisiana. He died approximately 30 hours later, on September 10, 1935, reportedly from internal hemorrhage. His last reported words were "God, don't let me die. I have so much to do."

No autopsy was performed on Huey Long. No formal coroner's inquest was held. The recovered bullet was not preserved or rigorously matched to Weiss's pistol by independent investigators. State Police seized and retained evidence; significant portions of the physical evidence later disappeared.

Background

Huey Pierce Long Jr. was one of the most consequential and polarizing political figures in American history. Born in Winnfield, Louisiana, in 1893, he rose from rural poverty through traveling salesman work to a Tulane University law degree, then to the Louisiana Railroad Commission, then to the governorship of Louisiana (1928–1932), and finally to the U.S. Senate (1932–1935).

As governor, Long built thousands of miles of paved roads, hundreds of new bridges, free textbooks for schoolchildren, night schools for adult literacy, and a massive expansion of Louisiana State University. He survived an impeachment effort in 1929 by lining up state senators to block conviction.

As senator, Long broke with President Franklin D. Roosevelt over what he considered the inadequacy of the New Deal. In 1934 he launched his Share Our Wealth movement, proposing a steeply graduated wealth tax to cap personal fortunes, guarantee every family a minimum income, provide a homestead allowance, fund college education, pay veterans' bonuses, and cap working hours. Within a year, Share Our Wealth claimed roughly 7.5 million members across more than 27,000 local clubs nationwide.

By early 1935, Long had publicly stated he intended to run for president — either as a Democrat against Roosevelt in the 1936 primaries, or as a third-party candidate. A confidential Democratic National Committee poll reportedly estimated that a Long third-party run could draw three to six million votes — enough, in Roosevelt's own calculation, to throw the 1936 election to the Republicans. Roosevelt told associates in private that Long was, alongside Douglas MacArthur, one of the two most dangerous men in America.

Long had also accumulated a long list of personal enemies in Louisiana: the New Orleans business establishment, the Standard Oil Company, the federal Treasury Department (which was pursuing tax investigations against him and his allies), Judge Benjamin Henry Pavy of Opelousas, and other anti-Long political figures.

Why This Death Raises Questions

Although the contemporaneous account that Carl Weiss assassinated Long is the dominant historical narrative, a substantial body of investigative work has questioned key elements:

• No autopsy and no inquest: Long's body was never autopsied. No coroner's inquest was held in either Long's or Weiss's death. The trajectory and characteristics of the fatal wound were never independently established.
• Bodyguard ricochet theory: Historian and journalist Ed Reed, in Requiem for a Kingfish (1986), argued that Weiss may have only struck Long with his fist or a punch (Weiss's lip was split before the shooting), and that Long was actually killed by ricocheting .38 caliber bodyguard rounds in the cramped marble hallway. Donald A. Pavy, a relative of Judge Pavy, advanced a similar theory in Accident and Deception (1999).
• 1992 exhumation of Weiss: Forensic anthropologist James Starrs of George Washington University led an exhumation of Carl Austin Weiss in 1991 and presented findings in 1992. Starrs reported that the FBI forensic team could not conclusively match the .32 ACP bullet that allegedly killed Long to Weiss's pistol, that the bullet attributed to the killing had unusual characteristics, and that the official chain of custody was broken.
• Missing evidence: The bullet itself, witness statements, and key documents from the State Police investigation reportedly disappeared from official archives over subsequent decades. Some material was discovered in a Louisiana State Police investigator's home decades later.
• Weiss's motive is contested: The standard account holds that Weiss was angered by Long's political attempts to gerrymander Judge Pavy (Weiss's father-in-law) out of office and by rumors that Long had spread about alleged Black ancestry in the Pavy family. Critics note that Weiss had a 3-month-old infant son, a thriving medical practice, no record of political violence, and no documented threats against Long — making a calculated political assassination atypical of the personality profile.
• Roosevelt's reaction: Within hours of the shooting, before Long had even died, Roosevelt's allies began publicly framing the killing as the inevitable result of Long's "dictatorial" politics. The Share Our Wealth movement collapsed within months of Long's death.
• Bodyguard accounts conflicted: Contemporary statements from the bodyguards present differed on key details — including who fired first, the position of Weiss when shot, and whether Long was hit before or after Weiss drew his weapon. Some witnesses reported Weiss's pistol may not have been fired at all.

No credible documentary evidence has emerged tying any U.S. or foreign intelligence agency to the killing. The principal contested questions concern Louisiana state actors, federal political opponents, and the forensic record — not foreign or covert services.

Key Quotes

"Every man a king, but no one wears a crown."

— Huey Long's Share Our Wealth slogan, 1934

"God, don't let me die. I have so much to do."

— Reportedly Huey Long's final words, September 10, 1935

"It's a hell of a way to write history."

— Long, reportedly, on the press coverage of his career

According to Senator Robert La Follette Jr., shortly after Long's death, Long had been the only U.S. senator capable of seriously challenging Roosevelt's renomination in 1936.

Counterarguments / Official Story

The official conclusion — adopted by Louisiana state authorities at the time, by every contemporaneous newspaper, and by mainstream biographers including T. Harry Williams (Huey Long, 1969, which won the Pulitzer Prize) — is that Dr. Carl Austin Weiss acted alone, motivated by personal and political grievances against Long. Under this view:

• Weiss approached Long, fired one shot from a .32 ACP pistol, and was immediately killed by the bodyguards' return fire.
• Long died of complications from that single gunshot wound.
• There was no second gunman, no broader conspiracy, no Roosevelt administration involvement, and no foreign or intelligence service connection.

The 1992 Starrs forensic team's findings were inconclusive, not definitive — they raised doubts about chain of custody and the ballistic match but did not affirmatively prove the ricochet theory. Williams's standard biography remains the most thoroughly sourced account, and most professional historians of the period continue to accept the Weiss-shot-Long account.

See Also

• Paul Wellstone — U.S. Senator killed in 2002 plane crash; Iraq War's loudest opponent.
• George S. Patton — General who died 12 days after a minor crash; OSS operative later claimed assassination.
• Frank Olson — Pre-modern-CIA-era death (1953) re-investigated by family and historians; exhumation found cranial injuries.
• Mary Pinchot Meyer — Politically connected American shot execution-style; diary seized and destroyed by CIA's Angleton.

Other Shocking Stories

• Trevor Moore: Comedian who exposed elite trafficking to 100 million viewers, fell from a balcony at age 41.
• Pat Tillman: NFL star turned Army Ranger shot three times in the head at close range; Pentagon covered it up.
• Karen Silkwood: Nuclear whistleblower run off the road carrying documents to a New York Times reporter.
• Danny Casolaro: Investigative journalist found with slashed wrists; briefcase missing; said "if I die, it wasn't suicide."

Sources

• T. Harry Williams, Huey Long (Knopf, 1969) — the Pulitzer-winning standard biography.
• Ed Reed, Requiem for a Kingfish (Award Publications, 1986) — argues bodyguard ricochet killed Long.
• Donald A. Pavy, Accident and Deception: The Huey Long Shooting (1999) — alternative forensic and political analysis.
• James E. Starrs and Katherine Ramsland, A Voice for the Dead (2005) — chapter on the 1991 Weiss exhumation and forensic findings.
• William Ivy Hair, The Kingfish and His Realm: The Life and Times of Huey P. Long (LSU Press, 1991).
• Richard D. White Jr., Kingfish: The Reign of Huey P. Long (Random House, 2006).
• Wikipedia: "Assassination of Huey Long" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Huey_Long
• Wikipedia: "Huey Long" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long
• Wikipedia: "Carl Weiss" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Weiss
• Louisiana State Archives and Louisiana State Police records (partial; chain of custody disputed).

Status: Deceased (1935)

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