The author examines and places in historical perspective Law 53 of 1948, a repressive statute that mimicked sections of the Smith Law and was known in Puerto Rico as la mordaza or the Gag Order . According to Acosta-Lespier, for nearly ten crucial years, the Gag Order managed to mortally wound the Nationalist Party, and through fear it decreased the electoral force of the pro-independence party, giving way to the electoral rise of the annexation movement. The author s thesis is that Law 53 was implemented just in time for the election of the first Puerto Rican governor to drastically reduce the impact of the surging Puerto Rico Independence Party. It was all part of a plan conceived in Washington to establish the middle road of the Estado Libre Asociado (Commonwealth of Puerto Rico). This in turn was to appease attacks by the Soviet Union at the UN regarding Puerto Rico s colonial status during the beginnings of the Cold War between these two powers. - from Amzon