COLLAZO AND TORRESOLA
 

Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola were Puerto Rican nationalists--this means they were seeking home rule for Puerto Rico. Their assassination attempt on President Truman was an attempt by two Puerto Ricans living in New York to force this issue at a time of an uprising on the island. The attempt was misdirected, since the President supported greater measures of self rule for the island than at any time before in history. Furthermore, the majority of citizens of Puerto Rico had recently voted against independence and would again reject it again. However, fanatics are seldom bothered by logic or reality.  On October 30, 1950, only five days before the citizens of Puerto Ricans were to vote on a new home rule constitution, members of the Nationalist (home rule) Party of Puerto Rico took up positions around the Island Police Headquarters, opening fire at 4 a.m. It was not a full scale uprising; however, throughout the island police were sporatically killed. A sustained battle was waged outside the home of Pedro Albizu Campos, the Harvard educated spokesman for the Nationalist movement. The seige continued for three days.

In Spanish Harlem, Collazo and Torresola met with Nationalist friends to discuss events. Most had relatives engaged in the fighting. While in New York, Collazo and Torresola had remained active in party affairs. They had known each other for years, having joined the party in the '30s together. Collazo was 37, a dozen years the senior of Torresola. In addition, both knew Campos personally. Unlike the Harvard educated party leader, Collazo and Torresola were working class, though both were said to have a high degree of intelligence and poltical knowledge. Collazo, who immigrated to New York City in his youth, had returned to Puerto Rico filled with a "vague uneasiness, that crystalized upon hearing a nationalist speech by Campos."  Torresola, on the other hand, was born into a family of radicals, who had participated in every Puerto Rican revolution.  In the United States, Collazo was employed at a skilled trade; he was a union representative and active within the Puerto Rican community.  However, Torresola worked only periodically, devoting most of his energy to politics while receiving government relief. Both had left behind ex-wives and children in Puerto Rico; both met and married new wives in New York who were also active in the Nationalist movement.

On the eve of the Puerto Rican uprising, Torresola met Collazo for the first time privately. They continued to meet, along with other Nationalists, throughout the siege of the Police Headquarters. Torresola's hotel room became a center of activity. Talk was of returning to Puerto Rico to join the fight. At his trial Collazo testified that he told Torresola that they could be of more help in the United States than in Pureto Rico. He stated:

They decided that the best idea would be to attack the President just as their compatriots had attacked the governor's mansion that day in San Juan. Since neither had even been to Washington, planning had to be sketchy. They agreed to buy new clothes and took the afternoon train to the capital. Sometime during the day Torresola bought a Walther P-38 pistol with $50 Collazo had given him. The gun cost $35--he returned the change to his friend, promising to show him how to work the weapon when the time came. After telling their wives they were leaving the island, presumably to return to Puerto Rico, they boarded the train, using two one way tickets to Washington. Both were wearing their new pin-stripe suits. The hotel clerk, when he saw their new suits and shy manner, thought that Collazo might be a divinity student.

After arriving in Washington D.C. and finding a hotel, they registered separately, under aliases, and then hailed a cab for a quick tour around the White House. The cabbie pointed out Blair House, where President Truman resided. In the morning they took another taxi and surveyed the grounds in more detail, noting the security guards and the distances between strategic points. The President's unprotected window was above the main entrance, but apparently they did not know which room it was. Collazo continued:

Early in the afternoon of November 1, both men walked towards Blair House from opposite directions, after taking separate cabs to the location. Collazo, who was still not overly familiar with his automatic weapon, and was further incumbered by carrying his glasses in his pocket instead of wearing them to see, reached the scene first. He pulled his pistol, attempted to fire, but was spotted by the sentry who headed toward him. After some fumbling with the Walther, he managed to hit the guard in the leg. As the wounded man crawled away, he fired off the remaining shots, hitting no one. Nor did anyone of the guards who had sprung into action seem to be able to hit him, though several bullets knicked him. In the meantime Torresola had arrived, armed with a German Luger. He began firing. He fatally shot the sentry whom Collazo had wounded and hit another guard three times. However the dying guard got off a last shot, hitting Torresola in the ear and killing him instantly. Just moments later a Secret Service agent, arriving on the scene, shot Collazo in the chest, and the battle was over.

Sometime in the midst of the gunfight, President Truman, who had been napping on the sofa just above the scene, was seen peering out the window of his room. He was instantly waved back by security guards.

Subsequently, on November 4, the seige in Puerto Rico ended with the arrest of Campos. The cause was neither furthered nor hindered by the suicidal mission of the two Puerto Ricans at Blair House.

Collazo survived to be tried for murder, in the death of the guard, and assault. He resisted the suggestion of attorneys that he plead temporary insanity, as he did not want to "discredit" his cause. A death sentence was a foregone conclusion. However, it was averted when President Truman stepped in to commute the sentence to life in prison.

The fight for Puerto Rican nationalism continued--as it continues to this day. Three years later, in March 1954, four Puerto Ricans shouting Nationalists slogans opened fire from the gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives, wounding five congressmen before they were overpowered. In 1979 President Jimmy Carter commuted the sentences of all the imprisoned Nationalists, including Collazo. After addressing two rallies, first at the Roberto Clemente High School in Chicago, and then at the United Nations, the five were returned to Puerto Rico, where a crowd of about 5,000 welcomed them home. They vowed to continue the fight.  Collazo lived peacefully until his death in 1994.  In 1999, the cause of Puerto Rican Nationalism was again in the news when President Clinton pardoned a number of more recently imprisoned nationalists on the eve of his wife's campaign for the Senate in New York.

Collazo lying wounded.                                                        Torresola dead.




 


Related Links

See: The Perils of the Profession, from the Missouri State Trooper Online
History of Blair House
Harry Truman,
>Harry Truman's Trivia version of the event,Shoot Out on Pennsylvania Avenue


Sources: Clarke, James. American Assassins. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1982; Donovan, Robert. The Assassins. New York: Harper & Bros., 1955; The Washington Post, 2 Nov. 1950; Newsweek, 12 Nov. 1950; Smith, Elbert B.  "Shoot Out on Pennsylvania Avenue." Article from American History.  30 Dec. 1999. . 1