30. Mata Hari (born Gerda Zelle), 1876-1917

Mata Hari, who was executed (a) by a firing squad in France in October 1917, is probably the most famous spy of all time. She is renown for her beauty, her numerous military lovers, her provocative Oriental dancing, and, above all, her espionage. Yet in fact, she was not Oriental, or even a spy (b). Mata Hari was a stage name adopted by a plump middle-aged Dutch divorcee, named Mrs. Margaretha MacLeod, who had left her alcoholic Scottish husband in the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia) and opted to become a dancer in Europe.

The evidence (c) of her alleged (d) espionage on behalf of the German Kaiser is based merely on her being mistaken for a well-known German agent Clara Benedix, by the British in November 1916. In that month Mrs. MacLeod was arrested in Falmouth, Cornwall, on board of the ship Hollandia

while she was on her way to Holland. The police released her when they realized the mistake. Later she was arrested in France and charged with (e) having been in contact with German intelligence officers in Madrid (though she had never even been there).

At her trial in Paris her lurid life-style was used to damning effect. It was only in 1963, when the secret files relating to her case were released, that the legend was reassessed. Most historians now think that, far from being a spy, Mata Hari was simply an innocent scapegoat - shot because the French government wanted to cover up its military ineptitude by fabricating an all-powerful ring of German agents.

Complete the following sentences with the underlined words from the text.

1. There was not enough_____to prove him guilty.

2. He was_____for murdering his wife.

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3. In your statement, are you the scene of the crime?

that the accused man was seen at

4. He was told to__

5. The criminal was

on the enemy's movements, with murder.

31. Guess the name of the character.

He was Chancellor to Henry VIII and a very great thinker whose writing has had a great effect on many people right up to the present day. Among his important thoughts was that the reasons for crime were to be found in economic and social conditions. He believed that if people lived in a more just and humane society they would behave better. He also thought that punishment should be sensible and that people found guilty should be made to work for the good of the community. His views were far ahead of the time, so that it was only in later centuries that his book Utopia was really understood. As a strict Roman Catholic he disapproved of Henry VIII's attempt to break away from the church in Rome and set up his own Church of England. For failing to accept Henry as the head of the English church he was tried for treason in 1535, being beheaded at the Tower of London. In 1935 he was made a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.

32. Oswald, Lee Harvey, 1940 -1963

Complete the text with the words that mean •

- to kill a person for political reasons;

- an offence for which there is punishment by law;

- an examination in law court;

- to examine carefully.

In 1963 the world was shaken by the news that President Kennedy had been (a) in Dallas, Texas, while driving from airport. The man arrested for this terrible (b) was Lee Harvey Oswald. After service in the US Marine Corps, Oswald went to the Soviet Union for a time and married a Russian girl. On returning to the United States he was for a time involved with Cuban revolutionary elements. On 22nd November 1963 he is said to have taken a rifle into the Texas Book Depository in Dallas, where he worked, and shot President Kennedy and Governor Conally of Texas as they drove past Conally survived, but the President died soon afterwards. Oswald tried to escape, shooting a policeman who tried to stop him. He was caught, but was later shot dead before he could be brought to (c) by the night-club owner Jack Ruby, who had got into the police station. The Warren Commission, which (d) the assassination, stated that Oswald had acted alone, but many people do not agree, and there are still a great many questions concerning the killing left unanswered.

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