Saturday, November 01, 2008
This Day in the Long History of Leftists Trying to Kill Our President
On this day in 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalists (and socialists), Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo, attempted to assassinate President Harry S Truman at Blair House, Washington, DC (where the Trumans were living during a three-year renovation of the White House). A mortally wounded White House policeman, Leslie W. Coffelt, (left) who had been hit with three 9mm bullets in his center mass, killed Torresola with a head shot from thirty feet and thereby foiled the plot, which could well have been successful otherwise. The surviving assassin, Collazo had his death sentence commuted by Truman and was pardoned, pardoned! by Jimmy Carter. Worst president ever. Testosterone fiction king Stephen Hunter has a good book on the subject, American Gunfight which he co-authored with John Bainbridge.
Labels: American History, Presidential Assassination Attempts