The revolution in Puerto Rico during the mid-20th century has been largely ignored — until now.
Four decades in the making, “War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony,” by author Nelson A. Denis, is a meticulous and riveting account of the decades-long clash between the Puerto Rican independence movement, led by Pedro Albizu Campos, and the commonwealth’s U.S.-appointed stewards, national police force, the FBI and, ultimately, the U.S. Army.
The book covers 50-plus years of Puerto Rico’s history, beginning with the U.S. takeover of the island from Spain in the late-1890s to a bloody revolution that engulfed eight towns in October 1950, during which Nationalist operatives also attempted to assassinate President Harry Truman at the Blair House in Washington, D.C.
“This is not a pretty story,” Denis, a former New York assemblyman, warns in the preface of the book, which hits shelves in April.
“(The would-be assassins) got to the steps, and apparently Truman was sleeping up in the second floor in his underwear, and he looked out the window,” Denis, 60, says of his brush with death.
“If things had gone a little bit differently, Puerto Rico might have actually become independent,” Denis adds.
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“The revolutionaries wanted to hold out long enough to get the attention of the world media, because the United States was so successful at (keeping this quiet).”
“How do we know they were successful? Because nobody really knows about this. Certainly the world doesn’t know about this.”
The book, which the Puerto Rican/Cuban-American writer began working on as a student at Harvard University in the mid-1970s, has started getting attention from Puerto Rican community leaders.
Congressman Jose Serrano of the Bronx has said it “fills an important gap in the historical understanding (between the U.S. and Puerto Rico),” and is “a book that every student of the U.S.-Puerto Rico relationship should read.”
“War Against All Puerto Ricans” is being published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Albizu Campos’ death at 73.
