Truman assassination attempt
On November 1, 1950, an assassination attempt was made on President Harry S. Truman at Blair House in Washington, D.C. The attackers, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, were Puerto Rican nationalists who aimed to disrupt an upcoming vote regarding Puerto Rico's political status and to push for its independence from the United States. During the attack, both assailants opened fire on security personnel, wounding three officers. Despite being shot, one officer, Leslie Coffelt, managed to return fire, fatally injuring Torresola. Collazo was also wounded and apprehended. The attempt, while ultimately unsuccessful, had significant repercussions: it temporarily boosted Truman's popularity, altering the public's perception of his leadership, but also intensified anti-Puerto Rican sentiment in the United States. As a result, the independence movement in Puerto Rico faced challenges in the aftermath of the incident. Additionally, the assassination attempt led to increased security measures for future presidents, impacting their interactions with the public.
Truman assassination attempt
The Event Attempt by Puerto Rican nationalists to kill President Harry S. Truman at his temporary residence in Washington, D.C.
Date November 1, 1950
The attempt to kill President Truman highlighted America’s contentious relationship with Puerto Rico and caused the further separation of the president from the American people behind a screen of security.
On November 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalists attempted to assassinate President Harry S. Truman at Blair House, a residence usually reserved for visiting heads of state, while the White House underwent renovation. The would-be assassins, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, hoped the assassination would derail Puerto Rico’s impending vote on its future status as a territory or commonwealth of the United States and would provide an opportunity for Puerto Rico to declare its independence from the United States.
Pro-independence activists conducted terrorist acts in Puerto Rico in the weeks leading up to the vote, but there was no evidence that the assassination attempt was part of a broader conspiracy. The assassins, armed with handguns, had observed the security procedures around Blair House and thought they knew what to expect. Unusually warm weather, however, meant that more than the usual numbers of Secret Service agents and White House police personnel were on duty outside that day, posted at the main steps into the house and at a security desk just inside the front door.
The assassins approached the house from opposite directions and opened fire, wounding three of the officers stationed outside. Collazo shot White House police private Donald Birdzell in both legs and exchanged gunfire with private Joseph Davison and Secret Service agent Floyd Boring, while Torresola fired upon police privates Joseph Downs and Leslie Coffelt, hitting both men. Despite a mortal wound to the chest, Coffelt managed to raise his weapon and fire a bullet into Torresola’s head, killing him instantly. Collazo, shot in the chest, collapsed on the Blair House steps without reaching the front door, where Secret Service agent Stuart Stout, armed with a submachine gun, waited for any attacker who tried to enter.
Truman, awakened from an afternoon nap by the gunfire, appeared at an upstairs window to determine what was happening before agents demanded that he not reveal his location. Agents quickly moved Truman to a place of safety. Despite the assassination attempt, the president attended a scheduled event later that afternoon. Collazo received a death sentence for his part in the assassination plot, but in 1952, Truman commuted his sentence to life in prison. Truman justified his action because Collazo had not killed anyone and had only wounded Private Birdzell. Collazo remained in prison for twenty-seven years, until President Jimmy Carter pardoned him in 1979; he died in Puerto Rico fifteen years later.
Impact
Truman’s brush with death provided an inadvertent political benefit by creating a rise in his public popularity that eased his sagging political fortunes in 1950. At the same time, American attitudes toward Puerto Rico became more hostile, and the island’s independence movement suffered a debilitating blow in the subsequent public backlash. The attempt on Truman’s life exacerbated the growing public distance between the president and the public as Truman and subsequent presidents had to accept more stringent security that limited personal contact with the public they served.
Bibliography
Hamby, Alonzo L. Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. One of the best academic biographies of Truman ever written. Includes discussion of the assassination attempt.
McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. A Pulitzer Prize-winning book that examines Truman from a personality viewpoint rather than a purely political one.