Truman Assassination Attempt
The second of two assassination attempts on U.S. President Harry S. Truman occurred on November 1, 1950. It was carried out by two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, while the President resided at the Blair House. Torresola mortally wounded White House Police officer Leslie Coffelt, who killed him in return fire. Secret Service agents also were involved and wounded Collazo. President Harry S. Truman was not harmed.
In an unrelated incident in 1947, the Secret Service had arranged to intercept and defuse some letter bombs addressed to Truman and his top staff after being alerted by British Intelligence, who had discovered similar letters sent to high-ranking British officials by the Zionist Stern Gang. This was during the period when the United Nations was reviewing the British mandate in Palestine. Truman supported recognition of an independent Israel in 1948.
Read more about Truman Assassination Attempt: 1947 Incident, Background To 1950 Puerto Rican Attempt, Plans For The Assassination, Attack, Aftermath, Honors, See Also
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“When you get to be President, there are all those things, the honors, the twenty-one gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn’t for you. It’s for the Presidency.”
—Harry S. Truman (1884–1972)
“Every man is in a state of conflict, owing to his attempt to reconcile himself and his relationship with life to his conception of harmony. This conflict makes his soul a battlefield, where the forces that wish this reconciliation fight those that do not and reject the alternative solutions they offer. Works of art are attempts to fight out this conflict in the imaginative world.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)