Who Killed Lawrence of Arabia

T E Lawrence (who changed his name to TE Shaw in 1917) was a British intelligence operative killed in a “freak” motorcycle accident on May 13, 1935. Several witnesses reported a black car deliberately colliding with him (by opening the left rear door) just prior to the crash. In addition a mechanic found matching black paint on the motorcycle. All evidence regarding the back car was suppressed. A coroner’s inquest ruled Lawrence’s death accidental. .

In addition to reviewing significantly details of Lawrence’s mission in the Middle East during World War I, the filmmakers summarize the physical evidence relating to the crash and discuss members of the British political establishment who had had means and motive to kill him.

At the start of World War I in 1914, Lawrence, who spoke fluent Arabic, was stationed in Cairo where he worked with Prince Faisal (the British later made Faisal the first king of Iraq) to create a guerilla Arab force to oppose Germany’s Turkish allies. The British had promised the Arabs an independent Arab state in return for fighting the Ottoman Turks. When they reneged on this promise via the Sykes-Picot agreement and the Balfour Declaration, Lawrence made an unsuccessful attempt to lobby for an independent Arab state and was barred from the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.

He subsequently served in the RAF from 1922 until 11 weeks before his death. At the time of his death, he was rebuilding ties with Arabs in Palestine and reaching out to Henry Williamson of the British Union of Fascists about arranging a secret meeting with Hitler (to use his prestige to avert a war with Germany). Additional projects included a upcoming book about the brutal treatment of British enlisted men by their officers (following his death publication was delayed until 1955) and a new edition of Seven Pillars of Wisdom (originally published in 1922) with new information about Churchill “hastening his mother’s death,” the famines he engineered in India and the genocide he ordered in Kenya. In March 1935 and Lawrence’s appointment to a review panel convened to restructure the British intelligence.

Immediately following the crash MI5 (British secret service) members were already at the hospital when Lawrence arrived, while others searched his house and removed potentially embarrassing documents, including a recent letter from Williamson and documents related to Lawrence’s future intelligence role.

Lawrence was in a coma for a week prior to his death.

*Faisal I also died mysteriously and suddenly in 1933 after he visited London to complain about about increasing Jewish immigration to Palestine and negotiating with the US to sell Iran’s oil to them instead of the British.