Albizu Campos, Pedro

(1891–1964) revolutionary; born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Educated at Harvard (B.S. 1916, LL.B. 1923), he joined the Nationalist Party in 1924 and was the most prominent independentista of his time. He was jailed from 1936–47 for advocating the violent overthrow of the U.S. administration of Puerto Rico. He masterminded a 1950 nationalist uprising in Puerto Rico and was accused of being behind the October 31, 1950, assassination attempt on President Truman at Blair House. After he was sentenced to prison for 53 years, Governor Luis Muñoz Marín offered him a conditional pardon in 1953, but withdrew it after the nationalist attack on the U.S. House of Representatives the next year. Campos spent his final years in prison.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Albizu Campos, Pedro

Born Sept. 12, 1893, in Ponce; died Apr. 21, 1965, in San Juan. Figure in the national liberation movement of Puerto Rico.

In 1921, Albizu Campos graduated from Harvard University Law School, where he had actively participated in the student movement. Upon returning to Puerto Rico, he became one of the founders of the Nationalist Party (1922), whose aim was to fight for the independence of Puerto Rico. In 1930 he became chairman of the Nationalist Party, and in the mid-1930’s he organized a number of actions against the American administration on the island. In 1936 he was arrested and convicted on the charge of leading “a subversive organization.” After he was released from prison in 1947, he again joined in the active struggle for the independence of his homeland. In 1950 he was arrested a second time and was sentenced to long-term imprisonment and hard labor.

A. P. MOSKALENKO