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| Monday 50th anniversary of worst terror attack on Congress |
| 2004-02-28 |
| Edited for brevity. There’s a penny-sized bullet hole in the desk used by Republicans when they speak on the floor of the House, a memento of the worst terrorist attack ever on Congress. On March 1, 1954, four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the visitors’ gallery above the chamber. They sprayed some 30 shots around the hall and wounded five lawmakers, one seriously. Amazingly, no one was killed even though some 240 members were on the floor at the time of the shooting, which happened 50 years ago Monday. Bullets penetrating the Republican desk barely missed Majority Leader Charles Halleck, R-Ind., who was hit by flying splinters. It was a stunning act of violence in a body that, despite its openness to the public, had been relatively violence-free in its first century and a half. There had been isolated incidents of lawmakers assaulting each other. President Andrew Jackson narrowly escaped an assassin outside the Capitol Rotunda in 1835. In 1915, a Harvard professor protesting U.S. policy toward Germany destroyed two Senate rooms with a bomb. A Vietnam War protester set off a bomb in a Senate restroom in 1971. The first metal detectors at the Capitol did not appear until 1976. It was not until 1998, when a man with a history of mental illness shot and killed two Capitol Police officers, that the need to deal with security threats took on a real sense of urgency. Then came Sept. 11, 2001, when many believe that the real destination of the fourth hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was the Capitol. Since then, the police force has grown substantially, streets around the Capitol are barricaded and visitors are closely monitored. For the first time, lawmakers are considering legislation on how to reorganize Congress in the event of a catastrophic attack that would kill or incapacitate hundreds of lawmakers. More details at link. |
| Posted by:Dar |
| #2 Ask Sen. Sumner if there was violence in the Capitol prior 1954. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-2-28 7:52:34 PM |
| #1 President Carter freed the Puerto Ricans in 1979 ...and wasn't I shocked to read that. Another highlight of his presidential legacy. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-2-28 7:46:28 PM |