The Plot to Kill Harry Truman—and the Shoot-out that Stopped It

by Stephen Hunter, J. S. Bain­bridge
2005, Simon & Schus­ter
ISBN 0743260686
384 pages, illustrated.

On Novem­ber 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican nation­al­ists, Oscar Col­lazo and Grise­lio Tor­resola, nearly assas­si­nated Pres­i­dent Harry Tru­man. If this his­tor­i­cal fact sur­prises you, you’re not alone. Amer­i­can Gun­fight, a new account by sus­pense nov­el­ist and Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Stephen Hunter and jour­nal­ist John Bain­bridge Jr., exam­ines this largely for­got­ten episode in metic­u­lous detail, includ­ing the con­spir­acy sur­round­ing it and the mis­con­cep­tions asso­ci­ated with the would-be assas­sins. As the book makes clear, it’s remark­able that these two men even came close to suc­ceed­ing, given the dis­or­ga­nized nature of the plot. Intend­ing to attack the pres­i­dent at the White House, they only learned in pass­ing from a cab dri­ver that it was being ren­o­vated and that Tru­man was in fact liv­ing at the nearby Blair House. When they made their assault on Blair House, they quickly lost their ele­ment of sur­prise when Collazo’s gun mis­fired, lead­ing to a 38-second shootout in front of the res­i­dence that left Tor­resola and one police­man dead. Mean­while, Tru­man wit­nessed the action from an upstairs window.

At his ensu­ing trial, Col­lazo was depicted as a crazed fanatic, but the authors argue that this sim­pli­fied assess­ment unnec­es­sar­ily dis­misses a poten­tial polit­i­cal con­spir­acy involv­ing Puerto Rican nation­al­ist leader Pedro Albizu Cam­pos, who was believed by some to have mas­ter­minded the plot in an effort to bring atten­tion to his cause. Hunter and Bain­bridge pro­vide in-depth por­traits of Col­lazo and Tor­resola, as well as the Secret Ser­vice agent and three White House police­men who saved Truman’s life. The descrip­tions of the remark­ably light pres­i­den­tial secu­rity of the era reveal much about 1950s Wash­ing­ton, D.C., a time in which the pres­i­dent would take a daily walk around the neigh­bor­hood with just a body­guard or two in tow. As a result of the attack, the Secret Ser­vice would for­ever change the way it guarded the pres­i­dent. This fast-paced book reads like a detec­tive thriller, shift­ing quickly between var­i­ous story lines and char­ac­ters, includ­ing a second-by-second break­down of the gun­fight itself. The pot­boiler nar­ra­tive may seem over the top at times, with its con­jec­ture and imag­ined inter­nal dia­logue, but this com­pre­hen­sive account suc­ceeds in bring­ing this unlikely plot vividly to life.
Shawn Carko­nen

See also WSJ review by Alonzo L. Hamby.

THIS BOOK IS IN PRINT. Avail­able com­mer­cially. Learn more about Stephen Hunter and J. S. Bain­bridge.