The assassination of Mehmet Baydar and Bahadır Demir occurred on 27 January 1973 at the Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara, California. The two Turkish diplomats, Consul General Baydar and Vice Consul Demir, were murdered by Armenian-American Gourgen Yanikian. Yanikian, using an alias, had invited the Turkish diplomats to lunch, during which they were both shot dead. Targets Mehmet Baydar Mehmet Baydar was born in Istanbul in 1924. After completing studies at The American Robert College of Istanbul and Law school of Istanbul University, he studied in the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris of Paris University. In 1950, he entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs service. After serving one year in the Economics Department, he was appointed to the newly established NATO Department of the ministry. In 1960, Bayda was appointed to chief secretary in the Turkish embassy in Washington DC, US. In 1966, he returned to Ankara to serve in the CENTO Department. Then, In 1972, he became the chief consul in Los Angeles, California. His service area included most of the western United States. Bahadır Demir Demir was born on March 9, 1942 in Istanbul. After finishing The American Robert College of Istanbul and the Faculty of Political Science of Ankara University in 1967, he began serving in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His first foreign appointment was to Los Angeles, California, as vice consul. The assassination On January 27, 1973, the 77-year-old Gourgen Yanikian, under the alias of an Iranian man named Yaniki, met with consuls Baydar and Demir at the Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara, promising to make a gift to Turkey of a banknote and a painting which had been stolen from the Ottoman palace more than a century earlier. As the three men began to converse over lunch, Yanikian revealed to them that he was not Iranian, but in fact Armenian and a survivor of the Armenian genocide. Baydar dropped the banknote in anger and a heated exchange took place, at which time Yanikian pulled a Luger pistol from a hollowed-out book and discharged all nine rounds at the two—hitting them in the shoulders and chest—though none of these wounds were lethal. As Baydar and Demir lay on the ground, Yanikian produced a Browning pistol from a drawer and fired two rounds into the head of each man in what "...he considered mercy shots." Evaluation That neither man was alive during the time of the