American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill President Truman--and the Shoot-out That Stopped It

by John Bainbridge Jr. and Stephen Hunter

Book Overview

A fast-paced, definitive, and breathtakingly suspenseful account of an extraordinary historical event--the attempted assassination of President Harry Truman in 1950 by two Puerto Rican Nationalists... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743260694
• Release Date: February 2007
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 0.99 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.2" x 1.3" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

350 pages to explain 38 seconds

Great book. A little slow in certain chapters if you aren't interested in the detail that led up to this event, but I was. This book tells the true story of 2 Porto Rican nationals that decided to kill Harry S. Truman. It explains in detail, and I mean in detail, how the plot was conceived, how it was carried out, and the result. It shows how this historical event was poorly planned, poorly executed, and resulted in total disaster. Not just for the would be assassins, but also for the Secret Service agents guarding the president. If the assassins had known a little more about what they were doing they could have been successful, and if the Secret Service had been better prepared they could have stopped it short right at the beginning. The people who researched this event really did their homework. They describe in detail the background and training of each person involved, why they failed or were successful during the assassination attempt, and the things that were learned by the Secret Service as a result of this confrontation. A great story about a real life gunfight. I couldn't put it down.

Meticulous Details of a Forgotten Assassination Attempt

If you are old enough, you know instantly who John Hinckley is, or Squeaky Fromme, Sirhan Sirhan, or Lee Harvey Oswald. But even if you were old enough and paying attention in 1950, you might not know the names Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola. On 1 November 1950, the two of them approached the house where President Truman was staying with the intent of assassinating him. In the resultant gunfight, one of the assassins died, and a White House policeman was killed, and there were other injuries. There were headlines at the time, of course, but the tenor of the reports was that the protection around the president was so effective that Truman was in no real danger. The incident has lapsed into obscurity, and the full story of the assassination attempt has not been reported until now. In _American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman - and the Shoot-Out That Stopped It_ (Simon & Schuster), Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge, Jr., have told the story in meticulous detail. It deserves to be better known, because the authors make clear that the danger to the president was real and it was a matter of chance that the assassins did not succeed. The authors have taken mountains of data, described the personalities and motivations of the assassins and of the president's protectors, and have made an exciting true-crime story. One of the amazing parts of _American Gunfight_ is how primitive presidential security was at the time. Truman famously took brisk walks around Washington every morning, every time going on the same route. He had a couple of Secret Service agents accompanying him, but they were lightly armed. One agent not on the walks had the job of going out to do the shopping for the family, so that there was no risk of poisoned food at their dinner table. There were no photo IDs clipped to pockets or lanyards. The Secret Service office in the West Wing was two brown desks in a small office, some logbooks, a gun cabinet, and a coffee urn. There were guards at Blair House, but anyone could simply walk up to the building, and that is in essence what Torresola and Collazo did. The gunfight took less than forty seconds, all examined here in step-by-step fashion. The mortally wounded White House Policeman Leslie Coffelt was able to get a last shot off, killing Torresola. Collazo survived minor wounds. Among the first on the scene was a reporter who got his first front page story from it, Ben Bradlee. Although later news reports and security analyses would downplay the potential danger that the president was in, the authors are clear in their revision. Truman was at the time taking a nap, and hearing gunfire, instead of taking cover, he went to the window and looked out to see what was going on. He was at the window, 31 feet from Torresola, a crack shot who would have had a clear shot at the president if he had seen him. The gunfight is told in many ways, the 38.5 seconds of gunfight progressing through the book intercala

Floyd Boring-hero in November 1950, villain in November 1963

"Americna Gunfight" is a terrific book about the Secret Service heroes who saved Truman's life on 11/1/50...but Floyd Boring was a villain on 11/22/63---see these articles by Vince Palamara: http://web.archive.org/web/20010210063152/www.njmetronet.com/palamara/boring.html http://web.archive.org/web/20010210062952/www.njmetronet.com/palamara/boring_arrb.html http://web.archive.org/web/20010209041718/www.njmetronet.com/palamara/index1.html http://jfkassassination.net/parnell/vpal5.txt http://www.jfklink.com/articles/EmoryRoberts.html

Engrossing Account of Forgotten Episode

"American Gunfight" is a thoroughly engrossing account of a largely forgotten episode in U.S. history: an unusually sultry November 1950 day when the Secret Service and White House police turned back armed zealots bent on murdering Harry Truman. The would-be assassins -- dutiful foot-soldiers in the Puerto Rican nationalist movement -- nearly succeeded in their illicit gambit, despite poor planning and several neophyte mistakes. They kill one police officer, seriously wound two others and nearly gain entry to Blair House, then serving as the temporary Presidential residence. Indeed, the final assailant is only brought down through the heroic actions of a dying White House policeman -- just seconds before a curious President Truman put himself in harm's way. There is excellent character development of all the major participants in the gun battle -- their lives, families, beliefs and motivations - as well as general history and background on the Puerto Rican national movement. All of this was fresh ground for this reader. The authors write with verve and suspense-filled intensity, producing a gripping, edge-of-the seat narrative, even for readers familiar with the basic outline of this story. I've read some of the criticisms of this book, including Alonzo Hamby's "exaggeration" claim in The Wall Street Journal (subsequently rebutted by the authors). While professional historians might find fault with some of the details, "American Gunfight" will hold most casual readers in thrall from cover to cover.

A masterful performance

Hunter/Bainbridge do a superb job of bringing insight, knowledge, background, and writing skill to this tragic incident. What is so interesting about this book is its style, vivid detail and second by second dissection of the fast paced gunfight. No romance novel ever held off the details of the long awaited love scene better than the authors hold off the identity of the real hero of the shoot out. Their characterization of Harry Truman's personality in looking out the window during the gun battle is hilarious. The narrative shooting of Greselio Torresola [sans punctuation] is truly masterful. A bravo perfomance.