This led me to wonder if perhaps there are people who's lives have been orchestrated so that when they are eventually in public office, they can be backed up, just in case their hosts are assassinated.
For example, if John F. Kennedy had been cloned, and he had a running backup on Molecular Tape, it wouldn't be such a loss if he was killed. In the event of assasination, the puppeteers need only refit one of his "Blanks" with a neural interface to his backup, conveniently stored at a remote location (e.g., The Dark Side of the Moon).
This would make assassination obsolete, since the replicant would be able to pick up where the original left off.