White House Police

The White House Police are shown most fully during the November 1, 1950 attack at Blair House, where Harry S. Truman was living while the White House was under renovation. Their routine guard posts became the setting for a sudden gun battle: the guards’ response stopped the attackers, but Private Leslie Coffelt died of his wounds. The episode presents the force through its deployment and the actions of individual officers rather than through a broader account of its organization.

Posts and Routine

On the hot afternoon of the attack, three White House guards were posted outside Blair House in winter uniforms. To break the monotony, they followed a rotation system known as the push. At 2:15, Private Donald Birdzell took up a position at the bottom of the front steps, beneath the canopy, facing the street. Two more guards occupied white-painted booths on the sidewalk, about thirty yards apart. In the booth to the east, Private Joseph Davidson sat talking with Secret Service agent Floyd Boring; Private Leslie Coffelt was in the booth farther up the sidewalk, to the west.

The account makes the arrangements concrete: the posts covered the front steps and the approaches along the pavement, while another White House policeman, Joseph Downs, had just been relieved by Coffelt and was heading toward the basement door. At 2:19, Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo approached Blair House from opposite directions among ordinary pedestrians. Their unobtrusive appearance delayed recognition of the danger, and the guards’ dispersed positions became the first line of response.

The Attack and the Guards’ Response

Collazo drew a pistol on Birdzell from only a few feet away. Birdzell was hit in the leg, but ran into Pennsylvania Avenue, drawing fire away from the President’s quarters. As Collazo continued shooting, Birdzell fell near the streetcar tracks and returned fire. Davidson and Boring also opened fire on Collazo; Boring struck him in the chest, bringing him down beside the front step.

At the western booth, Torresola fired point-blank at Coffelt, hitting him in the chest and stomach. He then turned on Downs at the basement door, wounding him three times. Downs managed to get inside and call for help. Amid the shooting, Birdzell was hit again, this time in his other leg. He nevertheless kept firing, bracing his pistol against the pavement. Coffelt, already mortally wounded, managed to use his own pistol and killed Torresola with a single shot to the head. The exchange ended after twenty-seven shots in two minutes.

Loss, Recovery, and Remembrance

The attack left the force with one fatality and two wounded officers. Coffelt was taken to hospital, where he died. Birdzell and Downs recovered from their injuries and eventually returned to their jobs. The book emphasizes the personal consequence of Coffelt’s death: Truman became extremely upset when he learned of it and later recalled that Coffelt had been one of the best-liked officers on the White House force.

Coffelt’s service was commemorated with a plaque on a new iron fence in front of Blair House. The memorial fixed the officer’s name to the place where the guards had been attacked, linking the ordinary routine of a post to its exceptional cost. In this account, the White House Police’s significance rests not on a description of institutional policy but on the decisions and actions of guards who, within minutes, faced gunmen at the President’s residence.