This is a Pre-Owned book. All our books are in Good or better condition.
- Format: Hardcover
- Author: Fran Manushkin, Juan Ortiz
- ISBN10: 1562820591
- ISBN13: 9781562820596
American Gunfightis the 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 presidents life.Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Stephen Hunter, the widely admired and bestselling novelist and author of such books asHavana, Hot Springs,andDirty White Boys,and John Bainbridge, Jr., an experienced journalist and lawyer,American Gunfightis 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 is a book about courage – on both sides – and about what politics and devotion to a cause can lead men to do, and about what actually happens, second by second, when a gunfight explodes.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, dont 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 mans coat is a 9mm German automatic pistol and in each head, a dream of assassins 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.| INTRODUCTION On November 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican Nationalists named Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola pulled German automatic pistols and attempted to storm Blair House, at 1651 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., where the president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, was at that moment – 2:20 P.M. on an abnormally hot Wednesday – taking a nap in his underwear. They were opposed by a Secret Service security detail led by Special Agent Floyd M. Boring, consisting of Special Agents Vincent P. Mroz and Stewart G. Stout, Jr., and White House police officers Leslie W. Coffelt, Joseph O. Davidson, Joseph H. Downs, and Donald T. Birdzell. In the brief exchange – under forty seconds – between twenty-nine and thirty-one shots were fired in an area about ninety feet by twenty feet, though the exchange broke into two actions at either end of the property, where the ranges were much shorter. When it was over one man was dead, another was dying, and two more were seriously injured.The story was of course gigantic news – for about a week. Whats remarkable about it is not how big a story it was but how quickly it went away. Today, few Americans even remember it, or if they do, they have it mixed up with a later event. In 1954,…
This is a Pre-Owned book. All our books are in Good or better condition.
American Gunfightis the 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 Stephen Hunter, the widely admired and bestselling novelist and author of such books asHavana, Hot Springs,andDirty White Boys,and John Bainbridge, Jr., an experienced journalist and lawyer,American Gunfightis 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 is a book about courage — on both sides — and about what politics and devotion to a cause can lead men to do, and about what actually happens, second by second, when a gunfight explodes.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 German 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.| INTRODUCTION On November 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican Nationalists named Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola pulled German automatic pistols and attempted to storm Blair House, at 1651 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., where the president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, was at that moment — 2:20 P.M. on an abnormally hot Wednesday — taking a nap in his underwear. They were opposed by a Secret Service security detail led by Special Agent Floyd M. Boring, consisting of Special Agents Vincent P. Mroz and Stewart G. Stout, Jr., and White House police officers Leslie W. Coffelt, Joseph O. Davidson, Joseph H. Downs, and Donald T. Birdzell. In the brief exchange — under forty seconds — between twenty-nine and thirty-one shots were fired in an area about ninety feet by twenty feet, though the exchange broke into two actions at either end of the property, where the ranges were much shorter. When it was over one man was dead, another was dying, and two more were seriously injured.The story was of course gigantic news — for about a week. What’s remarkable about it is not how big a story it was but how quickly it went away. Today, few Americans even remember it, or if they do, they have it mixed up with a later event. In 1954, four Puerto Rican Nationalists pulled guns and shot up C…
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