President Robert L. Booth

President Booth
President Booth (illustrated by Calum Alexander Watt)
Publication information
Publisher	IPC Media (Fleetway) to 1999, thereafter Rebellion Developments
First appearance	2000 AD #67 (1978)
Created by	Pat Mills Mike McMahon
In-story information
Full name	Robert Linus Booth

Robert Linus Booth is a fictional character from the British comic strip Judge Dredd in 2000 AD. He was the last President of the United States and the man who initiated the Atomic Wars.

In 2060, Booth was elected vice president, serving under President Harvisson. During Harvisson's second term he succeeded to the presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment, and was elected president in his own right in 2068 by rigging the vote-counting computers. One of the electoral promises he carried out was the 'No Foul' statutes, where all manner of assault and battery was allowed at sports matches as long as it was on the pitch. This would allow for increasingly violent 'deathsports' as time went on.

Belligerent and wanting further power, he whipped up public sentiment with the idea that the rest of the world was living off America, sent the army to seize foreign oil reserves, assassinated a dissenting adviser, and threatened to disband the Judges and return to trial by jury. He finally started the Atomic Wars in 2070 in response to international opposition, having convinced the population (and himself) that America's nuclear screens could keep out retaliatory strikes. The resulting devastation of America and the world led to the Judges taking control of the country. Booth fled the White House and took shelter in the Rocky Mountains with robot armies loyal to him; after the Battle of Armageddon in 2071, he was captured and tried for war crimes. He was sentenced by Judge Solomon, who decreed that he should serve a 100-year term in suspended animation, locked up in the deepest vault in Fort Knox.

Booth was served by three robot medics - Snap, Crackle and Pop - who replaced his blood annually to keep him alive. When Fort Knox was hit by a bomb in later years, the robots (following their programming) began to attack and drain blood from nearby villagers. This led to Booth being inadvertently revived in 2100, whereupon Judge Dredd sentenced him to life working on a Kentucky farm in the Cursed Earth.