Crime Figure. Robert Sheldon Harte was an American Communist who worked as one of Leon Trotsky’s assistants and bodyguards in Coyoacán, Mexico. During the Stalinist attack against Trotsky’s household on 24 May 1940, Harte was abducted and later murdered by the Stalinist agents. Harte was 25 years old when he offered his services as a guard to the Trotsky household. He replaced the American Trotskyist, Alexander Buchman. He was described as popular and that although not an intellectual, he carried out any tasks without complaints. The abduction and murder of Harte was carried out by David Alfaro Siqueiros. Pablo Neruda is also accused of conspiring in the plot because of his involvement in helping the latter to escape to Chile. However, Neruda denied this and claimed that he had issued the Chilean visa on the orders of Mexican President Manuel Ávila Camacho. Harte's body (shot in the head) was later found alongside the road to Desierto de los Leones. Trotsky commissioned a plaque and had it placed at the front of the house with the text: "In Memory of Robert Sheldon Harte, 1915–1940, Murdered by Stalin." It was purported, contrary to Trotsky's opinion, that Robert Sheldon Harte was indeed a Soviet agent operating under the name 'Amur' and was an accomplice in the May 24, 1940, attack on Trotsky. Harte was a member of the Communist Party of the USA recruited in New York by the NKVD. He was reportedly given a mission to liaise with a Mexican assassination squad led by Siqueiros. However, according to statements made by the man in charge of this GPU operation, General Leonid Eitingon on March 9, 1954, Harte was liquidated afterwards because he had expressed second thoughts. To this day, however, Harte's true allegiance and death remains a mystery since neither have been resolved.