On1 November 1950, days after a small group of Nationalists had taken to the streets of Puerto Rico, violently protesting U.S. rule, two men— later identified as Puerto Rican Nationalists Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola—took to the streets of Washington, D.C., with the intention of assassinating President Harry S Truman. Collazo and Torresola came surprisingly close to killing Truman, considering that they had no real plan of action and could not even be sure that the presi- dent was at home in the Blair House—Truman's residence while the White House was being reno- vated. A Secret Service agent's nightmare, the four-story Blair House sits fully exposed to Penn- sylvania Avenue traffic and passers-by, who if so compelled could peak through the windows to catch a glimpse of presidential life. The two men easily made their...