Decolonization Models for America’s Last Colony: Puerto Rico

The Visits of Five Presidents, a Pope, and a King

169 The Visits of Five Presidents, a Pope, and a King March 30, 2006 In the five hundred years that have passed since its colonization, Puerto Rico has had official visits from seven figures of the highest international rank. All of these visits took place after the US invasion in 1898. The first visit was on November 21, 1906, when President Theodore Roosevelt stopped over in Puerto Rico on his way back [to the United States] from a trip to the Panama Canal to inspect the installations being built there. The trip broke with American tradition: for the first time, a US president had traveled outside the continental United States. Roosevelt disembarked in Ponce and was greeted by his friend Governor Beckham Winthrop and by Mayor Simón Moret. Traveling along the Central Road, making stops in Aibonito, Cayey, and Caguas, the delegation arrived in Río Piedras, where the president delivered a speech vowing to obtain US citizenship for Puerto Ricans (a promise that he could not keep owing to opposition in the colonial power). A reception was given in his honor at La Fortaleza, the governor’s official residence, and the next day he left on an express train for Arecibo, then on to Utuado, Adjuntas, and Ponce, where he embarked to continue his trip back to the United States. While in Puerto Rico, Roosevelt had the opportunity to see firsthand the three main industries of the country: tobacco, sugar, and coffee. The second visit took place three decades later, on July 6, 1934. President Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived in the heavy battle cruiser USS Houston and docked in Mayagüez, where he was greeted by the disastrous governor Blanton Winship, who had been appointed by Roosevelt himself 170  Newspaper Columns and who would be responsible for the Ponce Massacre of 1937. Roosevelt visited Ponce afterward and then passed through Juana Díaz, Cayey, and Caguas on his way to San Juan. There was a reception for him at La Fortaleza , which various Puerto Rican political figures also attended, including the two main political leaders, both annexationists: Senate president Rafael Martínez-Nadal and House of Representatives president Miguel Ángel García-Méndez. Also present was Resident Commissioner Santiago Iglesias-Pantín, himself an annexationist and the author of at least one bill in Congress calling for statehood for Puerto Rico. Both [Teddy and Franklin] Roosevelt had previously been undersecretaries of the navy. They had a great interest in the role of Puerto Rico as a military bastion and as the gateway to the Panama Canal. After the Second World War, President Harry S. Truman visited Puerto Rico on February 21, 1948, with his chief of staff, admiral and former governor of Puerto Rico William D. Leahy. They were received by US secretary of the interior Julius A. Krug, Governor Jesus T. Piñero, and other local dignitaries. Truman visited the forts in Old San Juan, the Fanguito slum, a factory, and a hospital in Bayamón. Then he had lunch at the Jagueyes Hotel in Aguas Buenas with Senate president Luis Muñoz Marín, House of Representatives president Francisco Susoni, Chief Justice Martín Travieso, Resident Commissioner Antonio Fernós-Isern, and other local dignitaries and members of the military. There was a reception at La Fortaleza afterward, and President Truman spent the night on a navy battleship. This visit was the prelude to a meeting chaired by Leahy in which the [US] Armed Forces gave back to Puerto Rico the land they had occupied during the [Second World] War. On February 22, 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower visited Puerto Rico. This fourth presidential visit was scheduled as a technical stopover at Ramey Air Force Base in Aguadilla so that the president could rest before continuing his journey to South America. Governor [Luis] Muñoz Marín’s lobbying efforts ultimately obliged Eisenhower to land at the airport in Isla Verde for a thirty-minute photo opportunity, after which the president would take off and land at his Puerto Rican destination, Ramey Air Force Base. Days later, on his return from South America, Eisenhower landed at Ramey, played golf, and flew by helicopter to Dorado Beach to The Visits of Five Presidents, a Pope, a King  171 have lunch with his friend Dr. Henry W. Wriston and with members of [Wriston’s] organization, the American Assembly. The fifth and last presidential visit was...