Drama at Blair House: the attempted assassination of Harry Truman

American Handgunner, March-April, 2006 by Massad Ayoob

Situation: Two terrorists attempt to assassinate the President of the United States in the boldest attempt at home invasion in modern history.

Lesson: Training and equipment have to be job related. It's men, not guns, who win gunfights. Defenders accustomed to shooting under pressure in matches, shoot better under pressure in real life.

Like many reading this, I learned in history class about the attempt on President Harry Truman's life by two fanatical Puerto Rican nationalists. Like so many gun battles of the mid-20th century, before the coming of modern training, it ended with a tragic casualty count: one was dead on each side, and one bad guy and two good guys were wounded. The surviving would-be assassin would be sentenced to life in prison.

It was later I read more details in Robert Elman's Blood Guns, his book about gunfights and his series of the same name in the old Guns & Hunting magazine. Griselio Torresola had been armed with a Luger and Oscar Collazo with a Walther P38, both in 9mm, while the good guys had all been equipped with .38 Special Colt revolvers, 4" Official Police for the uniformed White House guards and 2" Detective Specials for the Secret Service. There was little more available in the way of details.

Enter Stephen Hunter, the novelist and newspaper columnist who's been profiled in American Handgunner before. Perhaps the most "gun literate" of current fiction writers, Hunter joined with John Bainbridge, Jr. to write a compelling non-fiction book titled American Gunfight: the Plot to Kill Harry Truman--and the Shoot-Out That Stopped It. Superbly researched, American Gunfight is the best book I've read in 2005, and in a way, this installment of Ayoob Files is one long homage to the work of Hunter and Bainbridge.

The Shooting

November 1, 1950 was an unseasonably warm day in Washington, D.C. It's 2:20 p.m. at Blair House, the guesthouse of the White House complex where the Trumans are staying while their regular quarters are being remodeled. President Harry S. Truman is napping in a second-floor bedroom when two men in suits walk onto the property. They quickly separate.

The smaller, Oscar Collazo, approaches the steps to Blair House where Donald Birdzell stands in uniform. Coming up behind the officer, Collazo draws his Walther P38, points it at Birdzell's back and pulls the trigger. Nothing happens. He struggles with the pistol, pounding on it with his other hand, and as the officer turns to face him, a shot is heard. Birdzell drops, shot through the right knee at a range of five feet.

Secret Service Agent Floyd Boring and White House Police officer Joseph Davidson are standing near a guardhouse not far away, separated from the shooting scene by a wrought iron fence. They see the shooting, draw their weapons and open fire on Collazo. Davidson triggers his Official Police rapidly in double-action mode, while Boring cocks and carefully aims his snub-nose Detective Special. Maddeningly, their bullets seem to repeatedly strike the wrought iron fence, which saves Collazo from the projectiles. The attacker moves rapidly, spinning like a dervish, firing his 9mm wildly. Birdzell pulls himself to his feet, dragging the leg with the crippled knee behind him as he hobbles after Collazo, firing his own Colt Official Police as he goes.

Boring, one of the best shots on the White House staff and fresh from a qualification where he shot an almost perfect score with .38 wadcutters in his Detective Special, holds a perfect sight picture on Collazo's hat and carefully squeezes off a single-action shot. The 158-grain Winchester round-nose lead bullet punches through the hat, strikes Collazo's skull, and ricochets away, tearing a nasty flesh wound in the scalp but not penetrating bone. Another bullet rips into Collazo's pectoral muscle, exits his chest, and goes into his right arm. This one has come from the 4"-barrel of Officer Davidson's service revolver.

Running to the sound of the guns, Secret Service agent Vincent Mroz joins the fight, but after his first shot realizes that he and the others don't have the best angle to engage the little man with the P38. Mroz sprints through an inside corridor, hoping to emerge from the building at a better angle for a clear shot.

Collazo's slide locks back empty. Bleeding from several minor wounds, he sits down on the steps of Blair House, pulls a fresh magazine from a pocket and reloads.

By now, the other conspirator has joined the fight. Griselio Torresola is armed with a Mauser-produced Luger in mint condition, and he knows how to use it. Approaching the small guardhouse where White House policeman Leslie Coffelt is seated, he whips out the 9mm and goes to a two-hand Isosceles position.

Coffelt is a gun guy, a member of the pistol team and a life-long shooter. He goes for his O.P., but is too far behind the action/reaction curve. Torresola cracks off four fast shots, moving as he fires. The muzzle is perhaps a foot and a half away from the uniformed officer. Three full metal jacket German military surplus slugs tear into Coffelt's midsection, and a fourth rips his coat sleeve. He slumps backward into the chair in the guard booth. Torresola rushes onward, toward Blair House.