Posted on 02/20/2008 8:44:16 PM PST by RDTF
Floyd M. Boring, a Secret Service agent who guarded five presidents and took part in the gunfight that foiled an attempt by Puerto Rican nationalists to assassinate President Harry S. Truman, died Friday at his home in Silver Spring, Md. He was 92.
His death was confirmed by the Collins Funeral Home of Silver Spring.
On the afternoon of Nov. 1, 1950, Truman was taking a nap at Blair House, where he was living while the White House, across Pennsylvania Avenue, was being renovated. Boring was stationed outside Blair House with several uniformed White House guards, while two Secret Service agents were posted inside.
"It was a beautiful day, about 80 degrees outside," Boring recalled in a 1988 interview for the Truman Library. Boring had been teasing one of the uniformed guards, Leslie Coffelt. "I was kidding him about getting a new set of glasses," Boring said. "I wanted to find out if he had gotten the glasses to look at the girls."
Moments later, at 2:20 p.m., two men approached Blair House and opened fire with pistols, trying to shoot their way inside and assassinate Truman to further the cause of independence for Puerto Rico.
Boring, drawing his .38-caliber Colt pistol, known as a Detective's Special, fired a bullet through the hat of one of the gunmen, Oscar Collazo, grazing his scalp. Collazo was also shot in the chest, and bullets grazed his nose and an ear. He was captured at the entrance to Blair House as Boring kicked his pistol away from his side.
Griselio Torresola, the other gunman, shot Coffelt, who killed him with return fire. Coffelt died of his wounds hours later. Two other White House policemen were wounded.
When the shooting stopped, Boring went up to see Truman and, as Boring recalled it, "He said, 'What the hell is going on down there?'"
Boring later said that in addition to firing the shot that grazed Collazo's head, he thought he had fired the bullet that hit Collazo in the chest. But in their book "American Gunfight" (Simon & Schuster, 2005), Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge Jr. wrote that the bullet may have been fired by a White House policeman, Joseph Davidson, and ricocheted off an iron fence before hitting Collazo.
Floyd Murray Boring, a native of Salamanca, N.Y., was reared in DuBois, Pa., and spent nearly five years as a Pennsylvania state policeman after graduating from high school. He entered the Secret Service in November 1943 and joined the White House protective detail in March 1944.
Boring was with President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he died at Warm Springs, Ga., in 1945, and accompanied his body to the funeral at Hyde Park, N.Y.
While guarding Truman, Boring also dealt with a frightening moment on the Potomac River one day when Truman struggled while swimming off his yacht, the Williamsburg.
Truman was not a good swimmer, Boring said in his oral history interview, and when he got into the water he started to struggle. Seeing his plight, and with others panicking around him, Boring threw Truman a life preserver and helped pull him in.
Boring also provided protection for Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He was not with Kennedy's Secret Service detail in Dallas when Kennedy was assassinated.
Boring retired in 1967 and entered private security work.
-snip-
I actually read “American Gunfight” just last year. A good book. I learned a great deal about the history of Puerto Rico, the evolution of the Secret Service and a gripping heartbeat-by-heartbeat description of what happens in a gunfight.
It’s unbelievable that Truman actually would take an early morning stroll about town with only one Secret Service guy in tow (struggling to keep up) every frickin’ day. And equally unbelievable that the would-be assassins did not take the time or trouble to find out that little fact.
The character studies of the participants and their individual stories made good reading as well. They might as well have lived centuries ago for all they had in common with the generations that came after.
Mr. Boring lead quite an exciting and courageous life. Thanks for posting.
Has anyone else noticed the irony of that statement?
How many boards
would the Mongols hoard
when the Mongol hordes
get bored?
Yeah
That would have helped ... NOT.
Years of dull guard duty, and in a few seconds, he and his fellows must respond with appropriate measures, with no regard of their lives.
His ilk are very, very special people.
. . .misty here. . .
I know a guy who probably took this guy’s place on the protective WH duty.
R.I.P.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
Wow, Truman through Johnson. RIP, Mr. Boring.
For the love of God! Know the book, read the book.
“American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman—and the Shoot-out that Stopped It” by Stephen Hunter
http://www.amazon.com/American-Gunfight-Truman-Shoot-out-Stopped/dp/0743260686
Unfortunately, one can't quite say the same thing about Mr. Interesting:
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