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American Gunfight
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 and the bloody shoot-out in the streets of Washington, D C, that saved the president's life.
Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner and New York Times bestselling novelist Stephen Hunter, and John Bainbridge, Jr., an experienced journalist and lawyer, American Gunfight is at once a groundbreaking work of meticulous historical research and the vivid and dramatically told story of an act of terrorism that almost succeeded. They have pieced together, at last, the story of the conspiracy that nearly doomed the president and how a few good men—ordinary guys who were willing to risk their lives in the line of duty—stopped it.
It begins on November 1, 1950, an unseasonably hot afternoon in the sleepy capital. At 2:00 P.M. in his temporary residence at Blair House, the president of the United States takes a nap. At 2:20 P.M., two men approach Blair House from different directions. Oscar Collazo, a respected metal polisher and family man, and Griselio Torresola, an unemployed salesman, don’t look dangerous, not in their new suits and hats, not in their calm, purposeful demeanor, not in their slow, unexcited approach. What the three White House policemen and one Secret Service agent cannot guess is that under each man's coat is a 9mm automatic pistol and in each head, a dream of assassin's glory.
At point-blank range, Collazo and then Torresola draw and fire and move toward the president of the United States.
Hunter and Bainbridge tell the story of that November day with narrative power and careful attention to detail. They are the first to report on the inner workings of this conspiracy; they examine the forces that led the perpetrators to conceive the plot. The authors also tell the story of the men themselves, from their youth and the worlds in which they grew up to the women they loved and who loved them to the moment the gunfire erupted. Their telling commemorates heroism—the quiet commitment to duty that in some moments of crisis sees some people through an ordeal, even at the expense of their lives.
Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner and New York Times bestselling novelist Stephen Hunter, and John Bainbridge, Jr., an experienced journalist and lawyer, American Gunfight is at once a groundbreaking work of meticulous historical research and the vivid and dramatically told story of an act of terrorism that almost succeeded. They have pieced together, at last, the story of the conspiracy that nearly doomed the president and how a few good men—ordinary guys who were willing to risk their lives in the line of duty—stopped it.
It begins on November 1, 1950, an unseasonably hot afternoon in the sleepy capital. At 2:00 P.M. in his temporary residence at Blair House, the president of the United States takes a nap. At 2:20 P.M., two men approach Blair House from different directions. Oscar Collazo, a respected metal polisher and family man, and Griselio Torresola, an unemployed salesman, don’t look dangerous, not in their new suits and hats, not in their calm, purposeful demeanor, not in their slow, unexcited approach. What the three White House policemen and one Secret Service agent cannot guess is that under each man's coat is a 9mm automatic pistol and in each head, a dream of assassin's glory.
At point-blank range, Collazo and then Torresola draw and fire and move toward the president of the United States.
Hunter and Bainbridge tell the story of that November day with narrative power and careful attention to detail. They are the first to report on the inner workings of this conspiracy; they examine the forces that led the perpetrators to conceive the plot. The authors also tell the story of the men themselves, from their youth and the worlds in which they grew up to the women they loved and who loved them to the moment the gunfire erupted. Their telling commemorates heroism—the quiet commitment to duty that in some moments of crisis sees some people through an ordeal, even at the expense of their lives.
392 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
156 people are currently reading
498 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Hunter
110 books1,970 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Stephen Hunter is the author of fourteen novels, and a chief film critic at The Washington Post, where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Stephen Hunter is the author of fourteen novels, and a chief film critic at The Washington Post, where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
April 27, 2016
When I was a kid, my only claim to precociousness was of a historical variety. I knew obscure historical figures, and I enjoyed dressing up like them on Halloween. One of my heroes was White House Policeman Leslie Coffelt. On November 1, 1950, Coffelt was on duty when two Puerto Rican nationalists - Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola - attempted to assassinate President Harry S Truman. Coffelt was shot three times, yet as he died, he somehow stumbled from his guardhouse and fired one shot at Toresola. This single bullet - of the dozens fired in a wild gunfight - blew off half Torresola's head.
I first read about Coffelt and the "Battle of the Blair House" in a book called The Story of the Secret Service. This book was part of a series called Landmark Books, published by Random House in the 1950s (and also, incidentally, cited as an inspiration for Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge's American Gunfight). The Landmark Book series was dedicated to a jingoistic, right-of-center, hagiographic, redemptively violent history of America. In Landmark's story, the men were men (see, "white" and "armed"), the women were quiet (save for the volume devoted to Susan B. Anthony) and the blacks were mostly forgotten (save for a rousing story about Booker T. Washington).
American Gunfight purports to be a critical new analysis of the Blair House, shorn of legend and myth. Really, though, all it does is clear up a couple errors and bend over backwards to convince the reader that Harry Truman was in actual, mortal danger (I was not convinced in the least - despite Hunter's cartwheels on this subject, Oscar and Griselio still come off as Quixotic bumblers who thought they could shoot their way into the Blair House and kill a President they weren't even certain was in the Blair House).
Really, all that American Gunfight manages to accomplish is an extension of the Landmark Book series. Except this time, it's got 100% more swears!
The book is poorly written. There's no way around that. At times the prose is macho stream of conscious, and I imagined it being narrated by a scotch-soaked, racist old grand-pappy chomping a cigar. At other times, awkwardly and embarrassingly, the prose veers into this tortured pseudo-eloquence. I want to call it purple, but that implies some level of skill, which is lacking here. However, you know the authors are trying to be profound when they start breaking their sentences into many small clauses.
To be sure, the authors go to great lengths to tell the entire story from all sides. They worship the White House Police and the Secret Service, yet at the same time, are sympathetic to the Puerto Ricans and give a semi-thorough, if flaccid retelling of the context that caused these two young nationalists to try to storm the Blair House. My gratitude at this inclusion was tempered by the fact that the authors aren't very good at writing about people. Despite all their research and interviews, no one comes alive.
Moreover, despite the slenderness of the book, much of American Gunfight seems like padding, as though the authors were getting paid by the word. It is filled with needless and inane details that continually bog the story's forward momentum. Do you want to know the seat number for Truman's daughter when she took the train to Washington? It's in the book. Did you want to read about an interview with the daughter of the man whom Truman awarded the Medal of Honor on the day of the Blair House attack? It's there as well. This is not a minor quibble; the sheer deluge of worthless minutiae transforms what should have been a sleek, exciting story (I think this could've been a great long-form piece in Esquire or the New Yorker) into a slow, bulky, ponderous read.
While the humans in this book are empty ciphers, the authors are on surer ground when it comes to their guns. In a way, parts of this book remind me of the Tom Clancy techno-thrillers I loved in my youth. There are times when Hunter's descriptions of the pistols used in the attack border on a kind of lewdness; it's like NRA porn.
Maybe I don't "recognize the beauty in guns." Or maybe I was getting a little touchy due to Hunter's sneering asides about liberalism, political correctness, and how real men play with guns, smoke Lucky's, and drink black coffee (Hunter repeats on several occasions how one of the Secret Service officers called coffee "Black Magic," like I give a crap). Or maybe I felt this book was written by an oaf making a fetish out of violence, and violence's tools.
I guess that would constitute my own sneering aside. Ahem.
Moving on. The earlier reference to Tom Clancy does Tom Clancy a disservice. Clancy never wrote a line of dialogue that wasn't pure exposition or pure garbage. But the man could tell a story. No matter how many loose ends he started with, he always tied them into nice little knots by the end. He was the master of cross-cutting and editing, and to this day, I believe his atomic bomb sequence in The Sum of All Fears is one of the most gripping, pulse-pounding scenes ever.
Hunter and Bainbridge should've studied Clancy. For all my nitpicking, the grand failure of this book is in its editing.
According to the authors, the shootout lasted 38.5 seconds (you finally learn near the end, after this number has been thrown out a dozen times, that the timing is based on a time-motion analysis that followed a worker who heard the first shot, then ran towards them). This is a short, eye-blink even, and certainly not enough to fill out a 300 page book, no matter how many inanities you throw on the page.
That doesn't stop the authors from trying. They give a literal bullet-by-bullet account of the shooting, complete with rampant overuse of onomatopoeia (outside of the old Batman television series, I've never seen "BANG" or "BANGBANGBANG" appear so often). Now, I actually sort of enjoyed the description of the gunfight. Sure, it took a lot of novelistic indulgences, especially when it came to the thoughts of dead men, but the authors were very careful to separate the facts from the inferences they drew. Indeed, many of the authorial inferences make a lot of sense, and help explain the actions and reactions, the causes and effects, of a fierce, confusing, short-lived firefight.
The problem: the gunfight is interspersed with a half-dozen chapters of needless digression. For example, there is a chapter on the first ten seconds of the fight, when Oscar went up to Officer Donald Birdzell, pulled the trigger, then tried to figure out why his gun wasn't firing. Then the chapter ends and there is an entire chapter on Birdzell's life. Then you'll get back to the next ten seconds, and right when your heart starts to race, your pulse skips a beat, and even a Democrat has to admit to the seductively exhilarating alive-ness of a gunfight, the chapter ends, and you are treated to another chapter detailing the life of another member of the President's protection detail. (However honorable and brave these men were, they led ordinary, unexceptional lives, and these chapters were horribly dull). Then you get back to the gunfight, and just when you think the book is going to hit its stride - finally - the authors cut away again, to the biographies of Oscar and Griselio (so essentially, we only learn about these men after they start dying).
Here's a question: How do you sap all the narrative power out of a gunfight, which by definition is exciting? Chop it up into little slices, and divide the slices with sluggish, over-detailed biographical chapters. The authors even shoe-horn in a ridiculous chapter about a Dr. Rhoades, who while serving in Puerto Rico, wrote a drunken letter in which he talked about giving Puerto Ricans cancer (he didn't do this, obviously). The authors state, baldly, that this was a motivating factor for Griselio. What?
Then, after about 135 (!) pages of this gun-tease (to continue my strained, violence-as-sex theme), we finally get to the heart of the gunfight: Les Coffelt verses Griselio Torresola (who, as the authors admiringly point out, did an amazing job shooting people: three hits, including one kill, which was better than the trained policemen and Secret Service). Then, instead of giving a lucid account of Coffelt's brave last stand, the authors turn this heavily-researched book into a novel (cue onomatopoeia). The last few seconds of the fight are told in a series of one sentence, stream-of-conscious, un-punctuated paragraphs, which is supposed to mimic the fevered mindset of the participants:
It's not even worth mentioning the propriety of such passages in a work of history, because it's just so stupid. I mean, if you're going to do this, do it well. This didn't make me feel like I was inside the head of a man under great duress; I didn't feel like I was seeing the gunfight in all its adrenaline-fueled confusion, terror, and excitement. To the contrary, I felt like I was reading a fifteen year-old girl's text messages.
This was a greatly disappointing book. Of course, in fairness, my disappointment was exacerbated by Hunter's reflexive hero worship. The last, embarrassingly awkward pages of this book find him strutting and tutting about WARRIORS and how they aren't understood and how we need to appreciate them and blah blah blah. It takes nothing away from uniformed men and women to say that his view lacks all nuance.
Hunter is clearly of George Orwell's persuasion: "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." If you're of that persuasion, anyone who doesn't believe in that is naive. This always leads to a false dichotomy (if you're not with us, you're against us): you're either a patriot who picks up a gun and walks a post (even if you only do so with a ribbon magnet you put on your car) or you're a lily-livered head-in-the-sky dreamer (known colloquially as a "Frenchman").
Without denying the necessity of violence in certain situations, this either/or worldview never ceases to ignore causality - that certain things happen as a consequence of other things. In other words, that violence triggers more violence. Oddly, Hunter and Bainbridge go to great lengths to present Oscar and Griselio as rational and motivated - if misguided - young men. That sensitivity, though, is lost amid the macho posturing.
This is a book to be enjoyed while sitting on a rocking chair on a porch in the woods with a jug of moonshine next to you and a shotgun leaning against the wall and maybe a notch in your belt from that time you shot a hippie.
Otherwise, it's not worth the read.
I first read about Coffelt and the "Battle of the Blair House" in a book called The Story of the Secret Service. This book was part of a series called Landmark Books, published by Random House in the 1950s (and also, incidentally, cited as an inspiration for Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge's American Gunfight). The Landmark Book series was dedicated to a jingoistic, right-of-center, hagiographic, redemptively violent history of America. In Landmark's story, the men were men (see, "white" and "armed"), the women were quiet (save for the volume devoted to Susan B. Anthony) and the blacks were mostly forgotten (save for a rousing story about Booker T. Washington).
American Gunfight purports to be a critical new analysis of the Blair House, shorn of legend and myth. Really, though, all it does is clear up a couple errors and bend over backwards to convince the reader that Harry Truman was in actual, mortal danger (I was not convinced in the least - despite Hunter's cartwheels on this subject, Oscar and Griselio still come off as Quixotic bumblers who thought they could shoot their way into the Blair House and kill a President they weren't even certain was in the Blair House).
Really, all that American Gunfight manages to accomplish is an extension of the Landmark Book series. Except this time, it's got 100% more swears!
The book is poorly written. There's no way around that. At times the prose is macho stream of conscious, and I imagined it being narrated by a scotch-soaked, racist old grand-pappy chomping a cigar. At other times, awkwardly and embarrassingly, the prose veers into this tortured pseudo-eloquence. I want to call it purple, but that implies some level of skill, which is lacking here. However, you know the authors are trying to be profound when they start breaking their sentences into many small clauses.
To be sure, the authors go to great lengths to tell the entire story from all sides. They worship the White House Police and the Secret Service, yet at the same time, are sympathetic to the Puerto Ricans and give a semi-thorough, if flaccid retelling of the context that caused these two young nationalists to try to storm the Blair House. My gratitude at this inclusion was tempered by the fact that the authors aren't very good at writing about people. Despite all their research and interviews, no one comes alive.
Moreover, despite the slenderness of the book, much of American Gunfight seems like padding, as though the authors were getting paid by the word. It is filled with needless and inane details that continually bog the story's forward momentum. Do you want to know the seat number for Truman's daughter when she took the train to Washington? It's in the book. Did you want to read about an interview with the daughter of the man whom Truman awarded the Medal of Honor on the day of the Blair House attack? It's there as well. This is not a minor quibble; the sheer deluge of worthless minutiae transforms what should have been a sleek, exciting story (I think this could've been a great long-form piece in Esquire or the New Yorker) into a slow, bulky, ponderous read.
While the humans in this book are empty ciphers, the authors are on surer ground when it comes to their guns. In a way, parts of this book remind me of the Tom Clancy techno-thrillers I loved in my youth. There are times when Hunter's descriptions of the pistols used in the attack border on a kind of lewdness; it's like NRA porn.
Of all the Lugers snatched up by GIs in blown-out tanks or pillbox rubble or ruined farmhouses, this was one of the best. It's sleek blue with almost no cosmetic imperfections, other than identifying scratches and numbers in the finish performed by law enforcement personnel for establishing chain of custody...It shows almost no wear; it could have left the factory yesterday. The checkered walnut grips are deep, sharp, and grainy; the magazine grip, two little finger-sized dish-outs in the magazine base by which the empty magazine is pulled from the gun, have been polished to a high, silver sheen, giving the gun a glittery highlight that plays off the slide stop, itself also polished a bright silver. It's a beautiful gun, for people who recognize beauty in guns...With its sleek, forward-leaning design, the streamlined rake of its grip, the checked knurl of its toggle action, it's almost art nouveau...It lingers in the imagination.
Maybe I don't "recognize the beauty in guns." Or maybe I was getting a little touchy due to Hunter's sneering asides about liberalism, political correctness, and how real men play with guns, smoke Lucky's, and drink black coffee (Hunter repeats on several occasions how one of the Secret Service officers called coffee "Black Magic," like I give a crap). Or maybe I felt this book was written by an oaf making a fetish out of violence, and violence's tools.
I guess that would constitute my own sneering aside. Ahem.
Moving on. The earlier reference to Tom Clancy does Tom Clancy a disservice. Clancy never wrote a line of dialogue that wasn't pure exposition or pure garbage. But the man could tell a story. No matter how many loose ends he started with, he always tied them into nice little knots by the end. He was the master of cross-cutting and editing, and to this day, I believe his atomic bomb sequence in The Sum of All Fears is one of the most gripping, pulse-pounding scenes ever.
Hunter and Bainbridge should've studied Clancy. For all my nitpicking, the grand failure of this book is in its editing.
According to the authors, the shootout lasted 38.5 seconds (you finally learn near the end, after this number has been thrown out a dozen times, that the timing is based on a time-motion analysis that followed a worker who heard the first shot, then ran towards them). This is a short, eye-blink even, and certainly not enough to fill out a 300 page book, no matter how many inanities you throw on the page.
That doesn't stop the authors from trying. They give a literal bullet-by-bullet account of the shooting, complete with rampant overuse of onomatopoeia (outside of the old Batman television series, I've never seen "BANG" or "BANGBANGBANG" appear so often). Now, I actually sort of enjoyed the description of the gunfight. Sure, it took a lot of novelistic indulgences, especially when it came to the thoughts of dead men, but the authors were very careful to separate the facts from the inferences they drew. Indeed, many of the authorial inferences make a lot of sense, and help explain the actions and reactions, the causes and effects, of a fierce, confusing, short-lived firefight.
The problem: the gunfight is interspersed with a half-dozen chapters of needless digression. For example, there is a chapter on the first ten seconds of the fight, when Oscar went up to Officer Donald Birdzell, pulled the trigger, then tried to figure out why his gun wasn't firing. Then the chapter ends and there is an entire chapter on Birdzell's life. Then you'll get back to the next ten seconds, and right when your heart starts to race, your pulse skips a beat, and even a Democrat has to admit to the seductively exhilarating alive-ness of a gunfight, the chapter ends, and you are treated to another chapter detailing the life of another member of the President's protection detail. (However honorable and brave these men were, they led ordinary, unexceptional lives, and these chapters were horribly dull). Then you get back to the gunfight, and just when you think the book is going to hit its stride - finally - the authors cut away again, to the biographies of Oscar and Griselio (so essentially, we only learn about these men after they start dying).
Here's a question: How do you sap all the narrative power out of a gunfight, which by definition is exciting? Chop it up into little slices, and divide the slices with sluggish, over-detailed biographical chapters. The authors even shoe-horn in a ridiculous chapter about a Dr. Rhoades, who while serving in Puerto Rico, wrote a drunken letter in which he talked about giving Puerto Ricans cancer (he didn't do this, obviously). The authors state, baldly, that this was a motivating factor for Griselio. What?
Then, after about 135 (!) pages of this gun-tease (to continue my strained, violence-as-sex theme), we finally get to the heart of the gunfight: Les Coffelt verses Griselio Torresola (who, as the authors admiringly point out, did an amazing job shooting people: three hits, including one kill, which was better than the trained policemen and Secret Service). Then, instead of giving a lucid account of Coffelt's brave last stand, the authors turn this heavily-researched book into a novel (cue onomatopoeia). The last few seconds of the fight are told in a series of one sentence, stream-of-conscious, un-punctuated paragraphs, which is supposed to mimic the fevered mindset of the participants:
Oscar spins and shoots and spins and shoots BANGBANGBANG it's all a mess a blur he can't get up the steps now because bang bang bang shots come at it the whole world it is shooting at him and he shoots back crazily just putting the gun between him and them bang bang when will it stop it is so loud he cannot get up the stairs they are all shooting at him he sees them there he shoots again BANGBANG the gun jumps hot in his hand like it's alive then it's dead, it's broken the thing on top is stuck no it's empty reload RELOAD
It's not even worth mentioning the propriety of such passages in a work of history, because it's just so stupid. I mean, if you're going to do this, do it well. This didn't make me feel like I was inside the head of a man under great duress; I didn't feel like I was seeing the gunfight in all its adrenaline-fueled confusion, terror, and excitement. To the contrary, I felt like I was reading a fifteen year-old girl's text messages.
This was a greatly disappointing book. Of course, in fairness, my disappointment was exacerbated by Hunter's reflexive hero worship. The last, embarrassingly awkward pages of this book find him strutting and tutting about WARRIORS and how they aren't understood and how we need to appreciate them and blah blah blah. It takes nothing away from uniformed men and women to say that his view lacks all nuance.
Hunter is clearly of George Orwell's persuasion: "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." If you're of that persuasion, anyone who doesn't believe in that is naive. This always leads to a false dichotomy (if you're not with us, you're against us): you're either a patriot who picks up a gun and walks a post (even if you only do so with a ribbon magnet you put on your car) or you're a lily-livered head-in-the-sky dreamer (known colloquially as a "Frenchman").
Without denying the necessity of violence in certain situations, this either/or worldview never ceases to ignore causality - that certain things happen as a consequence of other things. In other words, that violence triggers more violence. Oddly, Hunter and Bainbridge go to great lengths to present Oscar and Griselio as rational and motivated - if misguided - young men. That sensitivity, though, is lost amid the macho posturing.
This is a book to be enjoyed while sitting on a rocking chair on a porch in the woods with a jug of moonshine next to you and a shotgun leaning against the wall and maybe a notch in your belt from that time you shot a hippie.
Otherwise, it's not worth the read.
July 23, 2012
Not a bad book, but the subject is too brief for a book. It's an event that many have never heard about and it should be written about so that people can know what happened, but this wasn't the best approach. As another reviewer has noted the attempted assassination would have been better as an in-depth historical journal article. In book form there isn't enough so the authors use padding - mainly the Puerto Rico liberation movement and the various personalities that were on both sides of the movement in the 1930's and 1940's.
The topic of the Puerto Rican liberation movement is a topic that does need a book, but with American Gunfight we get a book length subject (the liberation movement) used to pad a magazine article (the attempted assassination). It's not a terrible book, but it isn't a great marriage either.
The other problem with American Gunfight is it suffers from an identity crisis. Mr. Hunter is a well known novelist and his style shines through which can be a problem in a non-fiction historical/journalistic style book. To combine a novelistic approach with a straight forward journalistic approach makes for a jarring read. As a result the book became something of a chore to get through - which wasn't what I was expecting.
I'm going to hold onto my copy. There are parts that I have found myself referring to. And the chapters about the actual gunfight and the immediate aftermath make for some good reading. But I can't recommend this book unless you just want to know more about the assassination attempt.
The topic of the Puerto Rican liberation movement is a topic that does need a book, but with American Gunfight we get a book length subject (the liberation movement) used to pad a magazine article (the attempted assassination). It's not a terrible book, but it isn't a great marriage either.
The other problem with American Gunfight is it suffers from an identity crisis. Mr. Hunter is a well known novelist and his style shines through which can be a problem in a non-fiction historical/journalistic style book. To combine a novelistic approach with a straight forward journalistic approach makes for a jarring read. As a result the book became something of a chore to get through - which wasn't what I was expecting.
I'm going to hold onto my copy. There are parts that I have found myself referring to. And the chapters about the actual gunfight and the immediate aftermath make for some good reading. But I can't recommend this book unless you just want to know more about the assassination attempt.
September 14, 2021
It had an very interesting premise, something I knew nothing about going into the book and was very intrigued in reading this fiction book based on facts. It was mildly entertaining but not more than that. Was bit underwhelming read
December 11, 2025
Learned a lot about Puerto Rico
October 4, 2013
Hunter, best known for his Bob Lee Swagger (from which the movie Shooter was taken) was for many years my go-to Airport book author (I had the idea in my head to mention this even before defFrog's excellent post about airport reads). Unfortunately, I have lost faith in Hunter the last few years (a feeling that appears to be shared with many Amazon commenters)
However when I saw this book, i was immediately interested in it, even before seeing Hunter's name on it. The book takes a moment in history that has been forgotten (and interestingly, was forgotten quickly at the time). It also is considered a bumbling attempt to kill Truman by two inept would-be assassins.
Hunter and Bainbridge discount the arguments by explaining what happened, and how close Truman really came to being killed. It is an interesting and unknown story. Without giving too much up, the incident gave us lessons that would change modern policework and the Secret Service and if learned at the time (which they weren't) would have changed everything. The authors explain how since the event, the thinking has changed but only after years of hard lessons learned. It also explains the actions of the two Puerto Ricans who were trying to kill the President, and knowing the background will change your view.
I give this a recommendation because it's a fascinating story and it's a part of history you never read about. It's also a very quick read. That said, this book is far from perfect. For starters, as interesting as this story is, there really isn't much more than 100 pages of material. Hunter expands it out to 380 pages and much of that is notes. For all that Hunter adds, it feels quite stretched.
The other problem it has is that hunter isn't sure whether to make this a nonfiction article or a novel. The book goes back and forth to some distraction. Additionally, the novelish part only serves to remind you how others would have told the story (The 50s era and pulp-ish elements would have been amazing if James Ellroy was telling the story).
In any case, my complaints don't take much away from a book I enjoyed.
However when I saw this book, i was immediately interested in it, even before seeing Hunter's name on it. The book takes a moment in history that has been forgotten (and interestingly, was forgotten quickly at the time). It also is considered a bumbling attempt to kill Truman by two inept would-be assassins.
Hunter and Bainbridge discount the arguments by explaining what happened, and how close Truman really came to being killed. It is an interesting and unknown story. Without giving too much up, the incident gave us lessons that would change modern policework and the Secret Service and if learned at the time (which they weren't) would have changed everything. The authors explain how since the event, the thinking has changed but only after years of hard lessons learned. It also explains the actions of the two Puerto Ricans who were trying to kill the President, and knowing the background will change your view.
I give this a recommendation because it's a fascinating story and it's a part of history you never read about. It's also a very quick read. That said, this book is far from perfect. For starters, as interesting as this story is, there really isn't much more than 100 pages of material. Hunter expands it out to 380 pages and much of that is notes. For all that Hunter adds, it feels quite stretched.
The other problem it has is that hunter isn't sure whether to make this a nonfiction article or a novel. The book goes back and forth to some distraction. Additionally, the novelish part only serves to remind you how others would have told the story (The 50s era and pulp-ish elements would have been amazing if James Ellroy was telling the story).
In any case, my complaints don't take much away from a book I enjoyed.
December 15, 2012
About as thorough a treatment of this incident as one could expect, delving into great depth on intimate background knowledge on all participants. The authors appear to have run down every loose thread. As someone who lived and worked in Latin America for several years, I came away very, very impressed with the depth of sympathy and understanding the authors show for Puerto Ricans, and the Puerto Rican Nationalist Movement. Done with the assistance of John Bainbridge, the book nevertheless reflects Mr. Hunter's usual style, to anyone familiar with his works of fiction. Sometimes the amount of detail is overwhelming, to the point of tediousness; however, it is well worth the effort to read past these areas for an intimate glimpse of a bygone era.
December 13, 2012
Worst book to listen to on tape. Too much irrelevant detailed information. The author takes liberties to paint in details when he chooses, leaves other out. And all the Spanish names got jumbled in my head.
All for a 38-second gun fight. But let's argue the time in more details. 38.2? or 39.4 seconds?
All for a 38-second gun fight. But let's argue the time in more details. 38.2? or 39.4 seconds?
May 14, 2017
If the subject interests you, find another book. This one is 60% fluff with a back and forth storyline that makes it seem like a bad Tarantino script.
August 31, 2018
This book was...not good. Interesting subject matter but 8th graders have written book reports more concise and organized
October 18, 2019
Wow. I'm reading right now. Such an apologist load of crap is chapter 23. I want to put it down. Justifying police action gunning down a parade of unarmed civilians because the CHIDLREN cadets were wearing uniforms and proceeded to march. This after telling them the morning of the parade that their previously approved permit was revoked.
That and 5 paragraphs dedicated to how the Presidential Guard performed a miracle of inserting a sliver of metal into a tiny hole... aka unlocking a cabinet.
And pages of back history contemplating what may have been going through the guard's mind... in a football game decades earlier.
He claims that there was "little resistance" from the island when the military invaded the island in 1898. They had independence from Spain for like two months yet the author expects them to stand up to one of the strongest militaries of the era? Get out of here.
I was surprised at how fairly the independence fighters were treated in the early stages of the book, but once I hit chapter 23 quoting the conquering general's speech claiming good will as proof that the US only had the island's interests in mind. The author claims that the country was never self-sufficient, which is garbage. It was a well-rounded island till interests tore out its diverse crops planting mainly sugar making it a fully dependent state. Phew. I don't know if I can read on...
That and 5 paragraphs dedicated to how the Presidential Guard performed a miracle of inserting a sliver of metal into a tiny hole... aka unlocking a cabinet.
And pages of back history contemplating what may have been going through the guard's mind... in a football game decades earlier.
He claims that there was "little resistance" from the island when the military invaded the island in 1898. They had independence from Spain for like two months yet the author expects them to stand up to one of the strongest militaries of the era? Get out of here.
I was surprised at how fairly the independence fighters were treated in the early stages of the book, but once I hit chapter 23 quoting the conquering general's speech claiming good will as proof that the US only had the island's interests in mind. The author claims that the country was never self-sufficient, which is garbage. It was a well-rounded island till interests tore out its diverse crops planting mainly sugar making it a fully dependent state. Phew. I don't know if I can read on...
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March 14, 2023This a review of the events surrounding the assassination attempt on Harry Truman in 1950. For those who are not knowledgeable about this event, this book provides a window into meeting the officers involved as well as the Puerto Rican Nationalists involved in the event. I was somewhat put off by the emphasis on gun descriptions. The author does provide some background on the two Puerto Rican Nationalists involved in the attempt as well as some of the historical events that led to the emergence of the Puerto Rican independence movement. Understandably, his focus is on the policemen involved in the attempt and the heroic death of Leslie Cofelt. Unfortunately, it glosses over the two Puerto Rican perpetrators and does not talk at all about the abuses of the civil rights of Puerto Ricans and their failed efforts to improve their lot by democratic means. It is clear that violence is not an acceptable mean to exert change but the author only glosses over the circumstances that led reasonable men to resort to violence. It does not speak of the abuses perpetrated on Puerto Rican citizens, or the multiple failed attempts to right these wrongs through political, democratic means. Anyone from the Puerto Rican diaspora, regardless of political views, would be well served by reading this account of the events. It provides a window into the dualistic nature of the relationship Puerto Rico has found itself in with the US as a long-time colony of the United States.
January 11, 2019
How different the world might have been had these two assassins succeeded in their fanatic mission. The authors' own attempt at imitation-Capote-esque non-fiction dramatization likewise misses at times, resulting in enough obvious padding to stop a bullet on its own. But the larger implications are worth it: here is President Harry S. Truman, Leader of the Free World, commencing his cold war crusade against the other superpower bloc, laying the foundations of the modern military-industrial, national security state we all know and love. And it almost came crashing down in its cradle, thanks to two gunmen from a peripheral, forgotten colony, flitting into Washington under all the political radar. That this particular act of terrorism failed depended on chance, and the responsible personnel being on their toes - two factors not at play on 9/11/01, for instance.
August 12, 2024
I wanted to like this book. It is supposed to be a historical account of the nearly successful assassination of President Truman by Puerto Rican nationalists, on November 01, 1950.
However, this book is so badly written, I had a hard time getting through it.
Hunter devotes entirely too many chapters delving into the meaningless backgrounds of most of the participants of the gunfight that day. These chapters are just vapid exposition, seemingly added to fill out this novel. A minimum of 80 pages need to be trimmed, possibly 100.
The jumping from the action, to a deep dive about a random officer's personal history, repeated ad nauseum, fatally ruins the flow of the historical narrative about the 38.5 second firefight, and what led up to it.
This is my first novel by Hunter, and it will likely be my last.
2. 25 stars.
However, this book is so badly written, I had a hard time getting through it.
Hunter devotes entirely too many chapters delving into the meaningless backgrounds of most of the participants of the gunfight that day. These chapters are just vapid exposition, seemingly added to fill out this novel. A minimum of 80 pages need to be trimmed, possibly 100.
The jumping from the action, to a deep dive about a random officer's personal history, repeated ad nauseum, fatally ruins the flow of the historical narrative about the 38.5 second firefight, and what led up to it.
This is my first novel by Hunter, and it will likely be my last.
2. 25 stars.
May 8, 2022
Finally, the story is revealed how some Puerto Rican nationalists took the path of violence in an attempt to gain their independence and freedom. The American biased slant on the "crazy" attack against President Truman is methodically and forensically revealed and analysed. The 38.5 (a guestimate) attack is carefully explained and every person is characterised so that the ima[pctr of every event and bullet has a real emotional connection. The lessons learned in 1950 took some 50 years to come into modern policing!
February 24, 2024
Interesting narrative of a little known story
I confess I had never heard of this incident before. The descriptions of places, characters, and the circunstances surrounding them are very well done. They are presented in a well balanced, very well documented manner.
Great narrative on the Secret Service at the time, Puerto Rico and its history and grievances, and a period of US history.
I confess I had never heard of this incident before. The descriptions of places, characters, and the circunstances surrounding them are very well done. They are presented in a well balanced, very well documented manner.
Great narrative on the Secret Service at the time, Puerto Rico and its history and grievances, and a period of US history.
July 17, 2024
Speed read it. Lots of background fill for those interest in the full monte. Very detailed analysis and account of events. It was a minor miracle Truman survived unscathed. It seemed that the authors positioned the PR Nationalist leader as a great strategist, among other qualities. But the independence movement failed at nearly every turn on the big day, due to inadequate planning and uncommitted/irresponsible rebels.
July 26, 2022
Terrible. Read the Wikipedia entry instead. The gunfight was 38.5 seconds, but is told in multiple chapters, interspersed with chapters about what officers ate for breakfast and what their hobbies were. I bet these authors were experts at filling out their required 500-word papers in high school. Way too many words used in this book.
April 7, 2024
The topic of this story is an interesting one, but it was poorly executed. The back and forth gave you whiplash and it wasn't so much hard to follow but rather nothing to follow. There was no cohesive story telling and a lot of added unnecessary "stuff" thrown in to make the book longer. As stated in the book, the topic is based on a 38 second gun fight, yet it is drawn out to 322 pages......
May 24, 2025
A rare Stephen Hunter nonfiction that covers the post-WII Puerto Rican independence movement and how it shaped the 1950 attack on Blair House where President Harry Truman was in residence during the White House remodeling…I really enjoy Hunter’s Swagger tales, and he is just as entertaining in this historical examination!
March 25, 2018
Written more like a detective novel than a history book, American Gunfight is about the attempted assassination of Truman by Puerto Rican revolutionaries. Overall it was interesting, although it could have been shorter as the end dragged on a bit.
October 29, 2020
This book needed a stronger editor. For example, did not need an 8 page or so disortation on target practice falling far short of an actual gunfight. Also, the misuse of hyphens was distracting and lended toward confusion. Subject matter could have been fascinating under a properly focused vision.
July 15, 2021
Good little piece of history. I wish the story didn’t go back and forth though. One chapter I’m reading about the attempt and next it skips to the history of one of the assassins then back to the gunfight
October 21, 2021
One of the best books about a historical event, best book Stephen Hunter had written
June 27, 2015
This book is 384 pages about 34 seconds. As you might imagine, it's detailed. The level of attention to those details is impressive, and, just as impressive, the author manages to string out the suspense for almost the entire book.
The book covers an issue and period of time most Americans have either forgotten about or just never knew (I'm pretty sure I'm in the second camp). It's a plot by Puerto Rican nationalists to kill President Truman at the end of 1950. It's kind of blended/overshadowed by a later assault by the same group (different men, though) on the US Capitol, one that was better planned (it could hardly have been worse) and cost more lives. This plot erupted in a gunfight right in front of the White House, across the street at Blair House (there is even a plaque commemorating one of the men who died there, which I saw a few weeks ago). The plot is the end of a failed coup in Puerto Rico, led by one of those firebrand leaders (whom the author terms 'the Maximum Leader' in what has to be one of those phrases that just doesn't translate) that riles people up, sends them off to their deaths then surrenders meekly when it doesn't work out.
The author gets a little carried away with his fascination for what are, franly, pedestrian weaponry- "deadly steel-jacketed bullets, fired by powerful, German-manufactured automatics"- c'mon, dude, they had 9 mils. Which actually led to a pretty shocking fact- the Secret Service protection detail had 5 shot .38 revolvers! So, in a battle for the life of the leader of the Fre World- as the Cold War heats up, with the Korean War happening- it's two guys with 9mm vs 4 guys with .38 revolvers!
Even more shocking to current residents of the DMV would be the access to public figures and buildings, ample parking ... and lack of traffic! Truly a simpler time. When Presidents could take naps during the day and go for walks in the morning.
Actually, that is where the complete lack of planning for this attempt showed. President Truman woke up at 6AM and went for a 30 minute walk, ever day, on the same path, his only protection being his walking stick and the two Secret Service agents huffing and puffing behind him. Had these assassins put in even a day of surveillance, they would have seen that killing the leader of the Free World would have been as easy as waking up at 5:30 and standing on his route with a gun. They wouldn't have just succeeded- they might have gotten away.
As it was, these two would-be assassins met on a bridge in New York, acquired guns that at least one of them had never shot (which showed, when he failed to load a round into the chamber before his first shot during the attempt), and took a train to DC. They spend the night in a hotel, then marched off with their terrible plan. By chance, at least they had learned that Truman was staying in Blair House, across the street from the White House, while renovations were being done on the White House, a fact told to them by a cab driver eager to help a few tourists. This was a political stunt, ordered by a man who would surrender meekly in Puerto Rico as his revolt failed, not a calculated attempt to kill the President of the US. Terrifyingly, it almost worked.
I won't spoil the actual shootout for you, since it's interesting and worth reading. I will say that the difference between a full load and quarter load of powder in a .38 probably prolonged the fight, and enough people survived to tell the story. For students of 20th Century American history, or people interested in what happens in a gunfight, this is worth reading.
Owen Gardner Finnegan
The book covers an issue and period of time most Americans have either forgotten about or just never knew (I'm pretty sure I'm in the second camp). It's a plot by Puerto Rican nationalists to kill President Truman at the end of 1950. It's kind of blended/overshadowed by a later assault by the same group (different men, though) on the US Capitol, one that was better planned (it could hardly have been worse) and cost more lives. This plot erupted in a gunfight right in front of the White House, across the street at Blair House (there is even a plaque commemorating one of the men who died there, which I saw a few weeks ago). The plot is the end of a failed coup in Puerto Rico, led by one of those firebrand leaders (whom the author terms 'the Maximum Leader' in what has to be one of those phrases that just doesn't translate) that riles people up, sends them off to their deaths then surrenders meekly when it doesn't work out.
The author gets a little carried away with his fascination for what are, franly, pedestrian weaponry- "deadly steel-jacketed bullets, fired by powerful, German-manufactured automatics"- c'mon, dude, they had 9 mils. Which actually led to a pretty shocking fact- the Secret Service protection detail had 5 shot .38 revolvers! So, in a battle for the life of the leader of the Fre World- as the Cold War heats up, with the Korean War happening- it's two guys with 9mm vs 4 guys with .38 revolvers!
Even more shocking to current residents of the DMV would be the access to public figures and buildings, ample parking ... and lack of traffic! Truly a simpler time. When Presidents could take naps during the day and go for walks in the morning.
Actually, that is where the complete lack of planning for this attempt showed. President Truman woke up at 6AM and went for a 30 minute walk, ever day, on the same path, his only protection being his walking stick and the two Secret Service agents huffing and puffing behind him. Had these assassins put in even a day of surveillance, they would have seen that killing the leader of the Free World would have been as easy as waking up at 5:30 and standing on his route with a gun. They wouldn't have just succeeded- they might have gotten away.
As it was, these two would-be assassins met on a bridge in New York, acquired guns that at least one of them had never shot (which showed, when he failed to load a round into the chamber before his first shot during the attempt), and took a train to DC. They spend the night in a hotel, then marched off with their terrible plan. By chance, at least they had learned that Truman was staying in Blair House, across the street from the White House, while renovations were being done on the White House, a fact told to them by a cab driver eager to help a few tourists. This was a political stunt, ordered by a man who would surrender meekly in Puerto Rico as his revolt failed, not a calculated attempt to kill the President of the US. Terrifyingly, it almost worked.
I won't spoil the actual shootout for you, since it's interesting and worth reading. I will say that the difference between a full load and quarter load of powder in a .38 probably prolonged the fight, and enough people survived to tell the story. For students of 20th Century American history, or people interested in what happens in a gunfight, this is worth reading.
Owen Gardner Finnegan
March 28, 2011
In "American Gunfight," the authors' duty to assemble a historical record around a forgotten news event sometimes gets in the way of what is otherwise a gripping story.
This true tale of two committed Puerto Rican nationalists, who failed to assassinate then-President Harry Truman, renders the high hour of American imperialism. In its depiction of duty-bound, patriotic law enforcement officers, its revisits a type of American male mostly departed from the scene.
The gunfight designed to shed light on the plight of oppressed Puerto Rico, and gain the larger world's attention, lasted less than a minute. The authors make up for this lack of material with portraits of the few players who starred in the violent drama.
For the most part, the renderings are too in-depth and arrest the narrative's progress. The same goes for the detailed discussion of guns, their types, and the ways they are fired.
Less nettlesome and better-crafted is the background information on the political fortunes of Puerto Rico and how these spawned the would-be assassins.
It is a testimony to the long-ago happening's allure that a reader probably wades through the sea of superfluous facts, to see how something they already know turned out, turned out.
If you follow.
Nonetheless, Mssrs. Hunter and Bainbridge have done yeomans' work in creating a one-stop and shop nonfiction record of how things went down all those years ago.
Had they not dedicated themselves to the effort, this not-unimportant tragedy, its victims and heroes, would have been lost to the dustbin of history (as they say).
Though, at times, taxing their own narrative, they triumph with the scholastic challenge "An American Gunfight" posed.
Best for readers really looking into the history of Puerto Rican politics.
This true tale of two committed Puerto Rican nationalists, who failed to assassinate then-President Harry Truman, renders the high hour of American imperialism. In its depiction of duty-bound, patriotic law enforcement officers, its revisits a type of American male mostly departed from the scene.
The gunfight designed to shed light on the plight of oppressed Puerto Rico, and gain the larger world's attention, lasted less than a minute. The authors make up for this lack of material with portraits of the few players who starred in the violent drama.
For the most part, the renderings are too in-depth and arrest the narrative's progress. The same goes for the detailed discussion of guns, their types, and the ways they are fired.
Less nettlesome and better-crafted is the background information on the political fortunes of Puerto Rico and how these spawned the would-be assassins.
It is a testimony to the long-ago happening's allure that a reader probably wades through the sea of superfluous facts, to see how something they already know turned out, turned out.
If you follow.
Nonetheless, Mssrs. Hunter and Bainbridge have done yeomans' work in creating a one-stop and shop nonfiction record of how things went down all those years ago.
Had they not dedicated themselves to the effort, this not-unimportant tragedy, its victims and heroes, would have been lost to the dustbin of history (as they say).
Though, at times, taxing their own narrative, they triumph with the scholastic challenge "An American Gunfight" posed.
Best for readers really looking into the history of Puerto Rican politics.
March 11, 2014
Although laden with poor word choices and sometimes lame attempts at creating fictional scenarios that tried to give life to non-fictional characters in a story that centers around 38.5 seconds of action, I liked it. At time, the poor writing made me cringe, but I still got through it pretty fast. The authors did a good job at showing both sides of the story, making you feel for both the Secret Service Agents and for the Puerto Rican Nationalists. Their point was: They were all men. And they made that point well.
It was definitely interesting enough and a quick read. A good non-fiction read for those of us interested in American History, but find it hard to get past those text-booky passages. You have to seperate fact from fiction in this book, but it isn't that hard.
The only thing I didn't understand was why the authors made Cressie a bad character. Perhaps I will raise this as a question.
It was definitely interesting enough and a quick read. A good non-fiction read for those of us interested in American History, but find it hard to get past those text-booky passages. You have to seperate fact from fiction in this book, but it isn't that hard.
The only thing I didn't understand was why the authors made Cressie a bad character. Perhaps I will raise this as a question.
April 15, 2009
How do you take a 30 some seconds shoot-out and make a 300 pg+ book. Two Puerto Rican Nationals attempt to take out Truman, and come close. This book is very heavy on details of the individuals at the shoot out, in a very Paul Harvey kinda way, but more like Paul Harvey with ADD. The actions that occured on this day helped shape the Secret Service into the more modern protection force we know today. Interesting to learn about the day to day activities of President Truman, he had a habit of walking early every morning, often without his security detail. If you put this book down for a stretch, it may be difficult to keep the characters straight. Also the details of their wives and family members seemed to be just a bit much for characters that I really don't have much of an interest or emotional connection with. This is a conspricy book, so please more conspiricy, less character study.
September 14, 2009
Well, thank God that's over. There are some books that are fun to read and others that I finish reading just because I started them. This book fell in the latter category. The subject seemed so promising. I kept waiting for the purpose of the book, the big surprise to arrive. It never did. The authors kept implying that there was big news on the horizon. But, really, the attempt on Truman was not just the action of a couple of loonies, but was part of the action of a larger movement? This is so important? Big deal! The point I assume the authors were really making was that no one else is a smart as they are. And I must admit, the research and the details were impressive. I think they are probably right, but. so what? At times, the writing was even compelling. But, overall, this was a long run for a short slide.
December 6, 2013
Usually, Stephen Hunter books are engrossing page-turners. The only reason I kept turning pages here was to finish the damn thing on principle. Good lord. The attempted assassination is definitely an interesting event, but it could have been written about comprehensively in 50 pages max -- I have no idea why it took 350 to circle around the same 38.5 seconds over. And over. And over. And over. Plus, the format was exasperating - here's a 3.2 second snapshot of the battle, omg this guy has cocked his gun and is about to shoot another guy and....new chapter! Let's delve into first guy's childhood some more. And then second guy's childhood. And then back to the battle, for a couple more seconds. Ridiculous cliffhangers gave me whiplash, but only slowed the story down and made me want to give up on it repeatedly. Bummer; I had hoped for better.
February 18, 2009
I appreciated the minutiae of this book - I can't remember the last thing I read that was this thoroughly researched. The would-be assassins and Secret Service men alike were vividly drawn, and the background on everything from Puerto Rican Nationalism to the delicate inner workings of a semiautomatic pistol was bizarrely fascinating. What did NOT work was the inconsistent style. The tense shifted often, sometimes mid-sentence, as the author tried to figure out how best to capture the immediacy of the event and the intimacy of the players. One chapter gives stream-of-consciousness-style attempts to articulate the thoughts in each person's head. I skipped the rest of the chapter after the first couple - it was like a mid-80s Stephen King novel.
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