1954: an attack of political violence that few remember
It happened in 1954, which isn’t all that long ago. But it might as well have been hundreds of years ago, because I doubt most Americans are aware of it. I’m pretty sure that if you were to stop 100 people on the street and ask them about it, none or few would have a clue what you were talking about.
So, what am I talking about? The Puerto Rican independence advocates who shot up the House of Representatives, wounding five members of the House, one seriously.
This happened during the “peaceful” 1950s:
When Lebrón’s group reached the visitor’s gallery above the House chamber, they sat while the representatives discussed the Mexican economy and issues of immigration. After Lebrón gave the order, the group quickly recited the Lord’s Prayer. She stood up and shouted, “¡Viva Puerto Rico libre!” (approximately, “Long live a free Puerto Rico!”) and unfurled the flag of Puerto Rico. The group opened fire with semi-automatic pistols directed toward the Representatives below.
Five representatives were shot in the attack. The wounded lawmakers were Alvin M. Bentley (R-Michigan), who took a bullet to the chest, Clifford Davis (D-Tennessee), who was shot in the leg, Ben F. Jensen (R-Iowa), who was shot in the back, as well as George Hyde Fallon (D-Maryland) and Kenneth A. Roberts (D-Alabama). House pages helped carry Alvin Bentley off the House floor. The representatives were treated and recovered.
Lebrón said she fired her shots at the ceiling, while Figueroa’s pistol jammed. Some 30 shots were fired (mostly by Cancel, according to his account), wounding five lawmakers. Upon being arrested, Lebrón yelled, “I did not come to kill anyone, I came to die for Puerto Rico!”
Lebron, by the way, was a woman.
The shooters were tried in the US and given lengthy sentences that were essentially life imprisonment. But guess what? Until I read it while doing research for this post, I had forgotten this little detail (if indeed I ever knew it):
Figueroa Cordero was released in 1978. One year later, in 1979, President Jimmy Carter pardoned the remaining Nationalists. Some analysts said this was in exchange for Fidel Castro’s release of several American CIA agents being held in Cuba on espionage charges, but the US said that was not the case. The Nationalists were received in Puerto Rico with a heroes’ welcome from roughly 5,000 people at San Juan International Airport
Good old Jimmy Carter.
Here’s Lolita Lebron’s 2010 obituary. You can see from the photo that she was quite the looker:
The former teenage beauty queen may have been a “terrorist” to most Americans, but she became an almost mythical hero, a kind of Joan of Arc, to many Puerto Ricans both on her native island and in their large New York community. Some, however, felt such violence was a step too far. Others compared her to legendary South American revolutionaries such as Mexico’s Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa or later to the Argentine-born hero of the Cuban revolution, Che Guevara. Stylised Che-style portraits of Lebrón began appearing in New York galleries and Che himself said he had been inspired by the gun-toting lady in the silk scarf, dangly earrings, bright lipstick and high heels…
After the Puerto Ricans were freed on 10 September 1979, they were feted as heroes during a tour of Puerto Rican communities in New York and Chicago. They were welcomed by tumultuous crowds, with banners proclaiming “Welcome Lolita!” when they flew into the Puerto Rican capital, San Juan. For the rest of her life, saying she did not regret her action but had renounced violence, Lebrón was known respectfully by her compatriots as Doña Lolita.
I thought about this incident during the recent Kavanaugh hearings, which featured many disruptions from the gallery and the need to escort some of the protestors out. At least we seem to have metal detectors and other protection now; I doubt a group could get in with semi-automatic pistols anymore. But I don’t doubt that there are some people who’d dearly love to (and they’re most likely not Puerto Ricans these days, unlike 1954), and I don’t doubt that they might find some creative way to outwit security and wreak havoc.
Then there was 1975 bombing of Fraunces Tavern by Puerto Rican terrorists.
Four men were killed and 43 persons were injured yesterday when a dynamite powered fragmentation bomb, reportedly planted by an underground Puerto Rican group, exploded and spewed nails and other shrapnel through historic Fraunces Tavern and an exclusive dining club in the Wall Street district.
Guess who saw to it that those terrorists were released ? Yup, it was Obama and Hillary.
In total, the FALN terrorists committed 138 bombings from 1974 to 1983. They eluded the FBI for years, but were eventually sentenced to life in prison, with the exception of William Morales, a key FALN bombmaker who fled to Cuba.
However, in 1999, President Bill Clinton, in an attempt to aid his wife’s Senate campaign obtain the Puerto Rican vote, granted clemency to all of the FALN terrorists except for López Rivera, as he declined the Clinton administration’s offer to renounce violence in exchange for clemency. Interestingly, Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign manager at the time was none other than de Blasio.
Obama released the last one in custody with a commuted sentence to time served.
The parole board ruled that Rivera had to remain in prison until 2023 at the earliest.
When Obama commuted Rivera’s sentence, Connor told City Journal’s Matthew Hennessey, “López Rivera will answer to a higher authority than Obama.”
Living in Orlando (Nuevo Peurto Rico), I’ve become a staunch proponent of PR independence. Retroactively if possible.
lots of stuff like that we FORGOT.
was erased… no one wanted to talk about it
and if we dont, or its selected out, its forgotten
been trying to remind you…
Rote Zora?
Zebra Killings?
the lineage of the weather underground and their machine gun fight to steal a brinks truck to fulfill charles mansons idea of a race war… (with the black liberation army)
now you remember FALN???
told ya about the riots over 5 corners and the howitzer on 2nd ave
what about the sniper that took out jewish person by madison square garden?
never found…
what about George Metesky
[thanks for killing the link to our book and mgtow]
the big one was this one from FALN
A bomb planted in Fraunces Tavern in the Financial District exploded on January 24, 1975
maybe because the march before was this:
On March 6, 1970, a bomb being assembled by American radical left group Weather Underground accidentally exploded at West 11th Street in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, killing three members and injuring two other members
and what about the animal that carried the bomb to wall street for the italian gallianists
who didnt like that sacco and vanzetti were tried (in a comiterm trial, the actual trial convicted a russian of setting the fire, the russian fake trial pinned it on sacco and vanzetti)
A bomb exploded on September 16, 1920, in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. The blast killed 38 people and seriously injured 143, and the total number of injured was in the hundreds
Possible revenge for the arrests of Sacco and Vanzetti and/or the deportation of Luigi Galleani
old history
quite irrelevant
unless you want to discuss what we NOW know from archives?
if you do, you can find stuff in here:
“CONQUEST FROM WITHIN”:
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN SOVIET ACTIVE MEASURES
AND UNITED STATES UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE DOCTRINE
https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=768335
its the homeland security digital library…
even they mention mitrokhin
the FBI said it was the greatest find
Moynahan of the moynahan commission said without it we would not know our own history [pararphasing]
in your ballet stuff, dont forget to leave out Mikhail Baryshnikov… he is latvian – we are erased
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-latvia-baryshnikov-idUSKBN17T21Y
whatever you do, dont look up Alina Bolshakova, Elza Leimane, or Nadine Wulffius
or the men M?ris Liepa and Aivars Leimanis [elza is his daughter]
funky world..
wish i could share more
but have placed to go, and people to see, and miles to go before i sleep
However, in 1999, President Bill Clinton, in an attempt to aid his wife’s Senate campaign obtain the Puerto Rican vote, granted clemency to all of the FALN terrorists except for López Rivera,
I doubt Hellary got 5 votes in New York in return for this maneuver. The smart money says the FALN is regarded more affectionately among red haze twerps of the sort you see on the subscription rolls of The Nation, Mother Jones, and The New York Review of Books than it is among street-level Puerto Ricans (who are commonly impecunious and have day-to-day concerns which preoccupy them).
Living in Orlando (Nuevo Peurto Rico), I’ve become a staunch proponent of PR independence. Retroactively if possible.
That’s harsh. The problem is that Puerto Rico’s economic development has been stunted and distorted by its peculiar relationship with the United States. On the one hand, it is the most affluent Latin American country. On the other hand, its employment to population ratio is 0.35. A ratio of 0.6 is normal in occidental countries. Not altogether sure, but a think that’s a result of minimum wage laws set according to the prevailing wages in mainland labor markets, welfare programs wherein payments to households are scaled to mainland incomes and expectations, and the readiness with which productive working aged people can resettle on the mainland. The result has been a social disaster. Also, whatever their talents are, they don’t include a high capacity for organizing public bureaucracies. The schools there have a dreadful reputation and the police forces are ineffective.
Obama released the last one in custody with a commuted sentence to time served.
For the same reason BO sprung Bradley Manning. He did not disapprove of what the guy did. Recall BO had Ayers / Dohrn in his circle of friends.
Truth: I’d never heard of this before this post today. And I’m not young. Not exactly old, but not young.
steve walsh:
That’s exactly the sort of thing I mean.
I have commented elsewhere on this a couple of times. Mostly in connection with presidential moral malpractice on the part of Carter and Clinton.
I remember hearing about it for the first time from my father, when I was still a boy. I don’t recall ever hearing a “social studies” or history teacher mention it.
There was a great injustice perpetrated here, and those who shot up the House should never have spent a day in a penitentiary serving their sentences in the first place. It’s a defect in our legal system that the whole lot of them were not put to death. Goddamn, Jimmy Carter, and the Clinton’s both.
If you lack any insight into the depth – time-wise and philosophically – of the animus of the professional political progressive toward the institutions of republican liberty and their indifference to the security of the American people, you need only look at these events and their outcomes.
Was it Puerto Rican terrorists that tried to assasinate Harry Truman and did kill a DC policeman and a secret service agent? It was when the White House was being renovated and the Truman’s were staying elsewhere. If I remember correctly Truman was taking his afternoon nap. Old Harry used to go for walks in the morning around DC. My how the times have changed.
I was 2 years old when it happened, and it was “old news” by the time I was cognizant of politics in HS. Ask my kids if they know anything about Kent State.
Also, I suspect the MSM was about as likely back then to keep the spotlight on news detrimental to the Left as they are now.
Things haven’t improved under US governance; the question is: would they have been better off gaining independence in the fifties or not?
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fbi-raids-puerto-rico-offices-after-trump-hints-at-corruption
I remember the attempted assassination of Harry Truman by Puerto Rican nationalists in 1950 (noted above by Artfldgr) than the congressional shooting in ’54. In particular my father was impressed by the gunmen’s explanation for their actions was they “had black blood in their stomachs”. As one of my family’s traits is that we have to work hard to ‘manage our anger’…well resist emphasising our logical and reasoned arguments by tearing the doors off the hinges and stuffing them through the windows or the like…. my dad reckoned he had some understanding of how the Puerto Rican gunmen felt. My dad was a solid Truman man though and through and took great pleasure in Truman’s 1948 surprise defeat of Dewey. It was not until 2016 that I witnessed a greater electoral surprise.
Thanks for this reminder – I had never heard of this. There are a lot of post WW II incidents too little covered in US history.
Relations with Puerto Rico and their history are also little covered.
PR should either be a state or an independent country — in between has been a disaster for them, worse than the hurricane(s).
The US mainland should push them to vote on these 2 (not 3) choices.
US still hasn’t heard what went on in Pearl Harbor, or even Gulf of Tonkin often times.
They should have got the death penalty and then the US should have granted Puerto Rico’s independence. Give them what they demand and then not a dime of foreign aid. Ever.
Let’s see if they can remain the most affluent Latin American country after their sugar daddy cuts the strings.
Ingratitude must have commensurate consequence..
PR should either be a state or an independent country — in between has been a disaster for them, worse than the hurricane(s).
Disagree. The disaster has been a consequence of excess integration of an incompatible territory. They should have had a protectorate status more akin to Panama ca. 1920 – i.e. a foreign country to which we provide certain services. We provided open borders and free access to welfare spending predicated on mainland labor productivity. You can see the result of that. Common provision should be predicated on local standards of living. Puerto Rico’s real income levels are 60% below the national mean on the mainland. The most impecunious states in the union (Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia) have real income levels 20 to 30% below national means. The most impecunious commuter belt (Brownsville, Tx) might be 50% below.
Give them what they demand and then not a dime of foreign aid. Ever.
They don’t demand that. The separatist party in Puerto Rico had a brief heyday around 1950, then largely evaporated. They’re good for about 6% of the vote in territorial elections.
The problem has been that the relationship between Puerto Rico and the mainland is not in the interest of the mainland and has had some troublesome effects on the island. Time for an incremental transition to a new dispensation.
One should note that 1/2 of all self-identified Puerto Ricans are living on the mainland. I’d wager it’s more than 1/2 of their sum of human capital. Things should not have developed that way.
Living in Orlando (Nuevo Peurto Rico), I’ve become a staunch proponent of PR independence. Retroactively if possible.
An old friend of mine thinks the same way. In July I visited him in Orlando and he had moved to a gated community. When I asked about it he said it was because they had been Puerto Ricoed.
Inneresting. Those four counties around Orlando have a population which is in sum 12% Puerto Rican. The Five Boroughs of New York City have a population which is 9% Puerto Rican.