In <c5b9e3a1-3143-48f1-90a2-14e4a610f6f1n@googlegroups.com> Dana How <danahow@gmail.com> writes:

I'm thinking this might have been a 1950s short story by Heinlein, but I can't identify it so far.

The story assumes a dictatorship (not necessarily religious), and a protagonist who figures out he can cause the dictator to lose face/authority if he blinds him during a public speech with a laser beam. That's basically it.

I probably read it around 1976 in an anthology, possibly already old. Sound familiar? Thanks.

Arthur C. Clarke. The "good guy" uses a laser to blind the "all seeing" dictor.

"The Light of Darkness"

"There is a small country in Africa which is ruled by a dictator.
The country is very poor, but fortunately it has a big crater
and it's located in the perfect place to convert the crater in a
inmense parabolic antena. This antena is going to be inaugurated
by the dictator. And this is the event that a scientific, which
is in an astronomical observatory nearby, uses to prepare a conspiratory
plot agains the dictator. When the dictator inaugurates the antena
and goes up to the top of it, will be alone and in a good spot to
use a laser, from the astronomical observatory, to burn down his
eyes and make him blind forever."

courtesy of: https://thebrickinthesky.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/5-arthur-c-clarke-short-stories/

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