ABSTRACT
Terrorism, interpreted here as the use of covert violence by a group for political ends, is usually directed against a government, less frequently against another group, class or party. The Irish Republican Army and Palestinian Arab terrorist organizations had many more members but only a small number were trained for terrorist action. After the First World War, it became the fashion among some governments to finance terrorist groups. Arms for the Irish terrorists were smuggled in ships from the United States; revolvers for the Indian terrorists came from Britain. External dangers apart, terrorist groups have always been threatened by internal dissension. The media, with their inbuilt tendency toward sensationalism, have always magnified terrorist exploits quite irrespective of their intrinsic importance. Terrorist groups usually hope for a measure of public support. Social Revolutionary terrorists were deeply religious believers. Generalizations about the "terrorist personality" are of limited value because there are so many variations.
