The Truman Assassination Attempt

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November 1, 1950 started out as any other day for President Harry Truman.  In fact, he believed that he had earned himself a well deserved nap that day.  He retreated to his room in the Blair House (where the Truman family lived while the White House was undergoing renovations), undressed and fell asleep on what seemed like a lazy Monday afternoon.

 

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On that very same Monday, however, two Puerto Rico Nationalists were conspiring to assassinate the president.  Their names were Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola (left and right respectively).  The two men had been planning the assassination as a means to bring attention to Puerto Rican independence and to the nationalist party to which they belonged.  The two men charged the house from opposite sides and engaged in a fierce shootout with the secret service and DC Police.  One officer managed to fire a shot that hit Torresola in the head, killing him instantly.  Collazo continued to fire at the men and was able to reach the steps of the house where he collapsed from a bullet wound.  Interestingly, the only bullet from Collazo’s gun that hit one of his targets was the last shot he fired.

Collazo was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was treated, and eventually recovered from his wounds.  He was tried and convicted on attempt on the president’s life and was sentenced to death.  However, President Truman commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.  His sentence was further commuted by President Jimmy Carter and he was released from prison in 1979.

While Americans usually remember the big assassinations that have occurred during our nation’s history, such as Lincoln or JFK, we mustn’t forget that our elected leaders have faced many more dangers to their lives.  This was the first attempted assassination on a president by an insurgent group rather than a single individual, and luckily they were stopped.

Sources: https://www.trumanlibrary.org/trivia/assassin.htm

http://www.shapell.org/manuscript/harry-truman-assassination-attempt