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The assassination attempt on Harry Truman in 1950 occurred on November 1st, when two Puerto Rican nationalists, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola, tried to storm the Blair House in Washington D.C., where Truman was residing while the White House was undergoing renovations. Their intention was to assassinate the President.
Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola were members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, which advocated for Puerto Rico's independence from the United States. They believed that by assassinating Truman, they could draw attention to their cause.
On the day of the attempt, Collazo and Torresola approached Blair House armed with handguns. Secret Service agents stationed outside the residence noticed the suspicious behavior and challenged them. A shootout ensued, during which Officer Leslie Coffelt, one of the White House guards, was killed. Despite being injured, Coffelt managed to fatally shoot Torresola before succumbing to his own injuries.
Collazo was wounded and captured at the scene. He was subsequently tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. However, Truman commuted his sentence to life imprisonment in consideration of his troubled background and the fact that he didn't directly participate in the shooting of Officer Coffelt. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter commuted Collazo's sentence, and he was released from prison after serving 29 years.
The attempted assassination of Truman was a significant event in U.S. history, highlighting the security threats faced by the President and the lengths to which some individuals would go to advance their political agendas. It also prompted increased security measures for the protection of the President and other government officials.
Offered is this historic 7” x 9” original International News TYPE 1 photograph with the original paper caption attached from November of 1950.
We’ve never seen an original photograph from this long-forgotten assassination attempt on President Truman’s life!
Item: 13435
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