Who bombed the Hilton? Read online

A policeman walks towards the bin directly out the front of the Hilton and pushes a large McDonald’s bag into the full bin. Two Chinese men who work in Chinatown ascend the escalator, heading for the Hilton coffee shop.

  Ebb moves the truck forward. The compactor is finished. Favell reaches for the bin directly outside the Hilton. It is overflowing.

  Rosamund Dallow pulls up in a cab and heads to the Hilton entrance to start her security shift.

  She passes Bill Favell carrying the bin. John Watson then passes him and runs for the one next to it. Favell carries the bin to the back of the truck.

  The Hilton night receptionist Manfred Von Gries starts to descend the escalator.

  Colin Wayne Nicholls, also a Hilton employee, a waiter on a break, sits outside the staff entrance, to the left of the escalators, as Rosamund enters the hotel.6

  12.42 am. Cec Streatfield calls the police stationed at Central station (two blocks away from the Hilton). Sergeant Turner answers the phone.

  The bin is emptied into the truck. There is a huge and violent explosion.

  The back of the truck is blasted open on both sides. The street lights are blown out and windows shatter up to 16 storeys on both sides of the street.

  Carter’s right leg is blown off at the pelvis and his stomach split open. Shrapnel lacerates his liver and penetrates his spleen. He is dead.

  Favell’s torso is blown 40 metres back down George Street.

  On the footpath, 15 metres from the truck, is a ‘portion of spinal column and scalp’. There is also ‘spine attached to portion of pelvis and remnants of thighs’. For a further 90 metres north of the truck more human remains are scattered. ‘The largest part identified [is] a right leg found in the front window of the Fletcher Jones store’.7

  Manfred Von Gries sees ‘a policeman go up in the air’.8

  Constable Burmistriw is hit in the head with shrapnel and swallows his tongue. Sergeant Hawkins clears his airway.

  Constable Terry Griffiths has part of his foot blown off and his abdomen perforated by fragments from the blast.

  Colin Nicholls’s right leg is split from knee to pelvis.

  Seven others are injured.

  The marble hotel lobby is littered with debris and splashed with blood.

  12.44 am. The sirens start. People are wailing, sobbing, screaming. Young coppers are dazed. There are people rushing towards the Hilton to look. A senior Commonwealth policeman takes charge and shoos people away. The first ambulance arrives and they begin frantically working on Burmistriw. The area starts to fill up with uniformed and Special Branch officers, firemen and ambulancemen.

  Upstairs, Malcolm Fraser, woken by the explosion, is joined by his press secretary David Barnett and Foreign Affairs Minister Andrew Peacock. Fraser goes straight down to the main floor of the Hilton in his pyjamas and red dressing gown. He walks down to the scene of the blast. Security will not let him out onto the street, fearing another bomb. He is in a unique position. Upstairs are the leaders of 10 countries (the President of Bangladesh has not yet arrived) and a bomb has just exploded on their doorstep. He is responsible for their safety.

  Around 1 am, Fraser calls a meeting of all involved in security from Special Branch, Commonwealth Police, New South Wales police and Hilton security — all are in intense shock.9

  The immediate task is to ensure that the Hilton itself is safe. The police search the hotel for further explosives. All remaining garbage bins are checked. The air conditioning is turned off and the ducts searched.

  The next thing is to review the security for CHOGRM, due to commence in seven hours. The 12 leaders are expected to travel by train to Bowral, a few hours from Sydney, on the second day of the conference.

  1.30 am. Suzanne Jones on the CIB switchboard receives another call from the man with the foreign accent. Again he says, ‘Put me through to Special Branch.’ She does but the caller hangs up when the phone is not answered.10

  1.45 to 2 am. A new bomb scare. An object wrapped in hessian is located on the fire escape. It’s a wrapped brick used to prop open the door.

  Superintendent Reginald Douglas briefs the press in the media centre. He accepts responsibility for not telling police to search the rubbish bins.

  3 am. The hotel is sealed. No one is allowed to enter. The police bomb squad continues searching for further explosives.

  3.30 am. Before Fraser retires for the remainder of the night, he asks for a full written report on the security assessment of the Hilton and the Bowral visit.

  Outside, the Scientific Branch detectives and Army experts begin to examine the wreckage. A team of up to 12 Scientific Branch detectives work through the night.11

  In a few hours Norm Sheather will read the following eloquent précis of the crime scene compiled by Detective Sergeant RD Millington. This report will take him through that long, warm night and bring him to the moment he forms the Hilton bombing task force.

  The government Medical Officer has been contacted and all human remains will be x-rayed in an effort to locate any foreign metal substances that would assist in this inquiry.

  Numerous Police attended under the control of Supt. Douglas of Police Headquarters and Det. Inspector Toohey of ‘A’ District. Det. Sgt Forbes of Scientific attended and is making the necessary inquiries. Sgt Gibson of Police Ballistics attended and made arrangements for members of the Army Bomb Disposal squad to attend and subsequently army personnel under Lieut. Stephenson attended the scene and they with the aid of trained Alsatian dogs, at this time are making a thorough search of all garbage receptacles in George and Pitt Street ... within a 400-yard radius of the Hilton Hotel with the purpose of locating any further explosive devices. The garbage truck is under guard and being kept in George St., outside the Hilton Hotel where all the garbage therein will be examined together with an area of 200 yards radius of the George Street entrance to the Hilton Hotel, in an effort to ascertain the device that caused the explosion …

  Detective Inspector Perrin of Special Branch also attended and he is supplying a list of possible suspects whom it is thought could be responsible for this explosion as it is thought that the fact of the numerous Prime Ministers being residents of this Hotel that this action could be Politically motivated.12

  The day unfolds … The man completing the review of securing CHOGRM after the bombing is Alan Flemming, the 65-year-old head of the Protective Security Coordination Centre and chairman of the inter-departmental committee advising the government on VIP security. A World War II veteran and intelligence officer, he had been brought out of retirement to head a new unit. Six months earlier his unit of 20 had been given sharply increased powers in preparation for CHOGRM and given the job of counter-terrorist planning. He has clearly failed in that and has until 8 am to come up with a new plan.

  Also wearing failure is Superintendent Reg Douglas, who was in charge of all CHOGRM security. He admits to Flemming that he no longer believes that he can guarantee the security of the Sydney–Bowral train line with the 300 police at his disposal.

  8 am. Flemming and his team complete the new security report. He flags calling in the Army.

  8 am. The President of Bangladesh arrives at the Hilton straight from the airport — God only knows what he thinks.

  10 am. CHOGRM starts inside the Hilton. The mood is bleak.

  Norm gathers witness statements. He makes no assumptions. He continues to corral the information that pours in throughout the day and begins the hunt. Everyone who was present at the demonstrations the day before will be tracked down and questioned — the feminists, the anarchists, the Ananda Marga. Leads are pursued from eyewitness accounts around the time of the blast. Three men are seen driving a Mr Whippy van away from the explosion (reported by Trevor James Thomson, Station Assistant). A suspicious ‘Arabic-looking’ man is seen hanging around the escalator (reported by Hilton employee Manfred Von Gries). Other leads include someone seeing a Rolls Royce weaving up the street and information about an escapee from a Western Australian prison
.

  Yet Norm is not content to simply receive information that may or may not be tinged with agendas. Given that he has 12 world leaders in close proximity to that explosion, who can say who the target was? Even the press is speculating:

  … was the bomber a lone eccentric with a general hatred for politicians and other great ones or was there a specific target for their protest? The guessing game [goes] on all day. Was it Tonga, Nauru, Western Samoa or Fiji? Surely not. Mr Michael Somare has his enemies, but seems high on the list of improbabilities … Mr Desai, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, [Mr] Datul Onn of Malaysia, Mr Jayawardene of Sri Lanka and General Ziaur Rabmen of Bangladesh. All have troubles at home. Each could be [the] target. So could, if it comes to that, Mr Malcolm Fraser. Whoever the bomb was intended for, it is providing police with a major headache for the next three days.13

  Thus Norm sends a telex out to the world. Titled ‘Regarding a Fatal Bomb Explosion outside the Hilton Hotel’, he sends it first to the respective countries of the visiting Commonwealth heads of state, next to the secretary-general of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) in Paris, and then to every member country of Interpol. He asks simply for a ‘list of persons belonging to international organised gangs and who are known to be responsible for various types of violent crimes (bombings, assassination attempts, hostage taking etc.)’.14

  In 1978 the telex is at its pinnacle and it connects the most remote places on the planet to each other. Yet despite the information being conveyed in real time, it cannot be responded to instantly. Without sophisticated computers and email to flit across the globe, hard-copy files need to be searched, experts consulted, responses compiled. It may be a slow form of evidence-gathering (some of the responses will take up to two or three weeks to arrive), but when answers do come, they are considered and disturbing.

  By the end of the day Norm Sheather sends Detective Superintendent Jim Black to face the press. He reports the accomplishment of lots of groundwork, the compilation of lots of statements, of messages sent to interstate police and to Interpol, but ‘No positive leads.’15

  Tuesday 14 February 1978

  Norm Sheather and the rest of Australia awake to the news that the Australian Army has been mobilised to take over the security for CHOGRM. Over 500 armed soldiers line the train route from Sydney for the world leaders’ planned jaunt to the country town of Bowral. Not content with this security measure, the train is sent off empty while the leaders are stuffed into Iroquois helicopters and whisked to their destination. The press are incredulous and compare the scene to — Belfast! Beirut!1 — and report breathlessly that it is ‘the most elaborate security operation in Australia’s history’. One reporter can’t help but add the barb that ‘Operation Ghost Train was carried out with a sophistication that contrasted sharply with the position on Sunday when a bomber was able to plant an explosive device in a street rubbish bin under the eyes of police guarding the conference venue’.2

  The task force begins to focus. Those on it need to swiftly and effectively order the material that is streaming in. Sheather has three principal sources of information to contend with. The first from the public, the second from the task force’s own investigations, and the third from ASIO and Special Branch. As the first and second are now in motion, he sets his mind to the third, and prepares for a briefing from ASIO.

  These two organisations, ASIO and New South Wales Special Branch, have been regarded as conjoined twins in the minds of many, but they have different structures, agendas, duties and, importantly, different personnel. While they do occasionally work on the same cases, this does not necessarily mean they work together. Nor do they always share information.

  At the time of the bombing, ASIO is headed by Sir Edward Woodward, and the organisation is fresh from the Hope Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security, which reported the year before. The royal commission is the catalyst for ASIO becoming more professional and less politically partisan, with officers who are better educated and better trained. ASIO’s mandate is to collect intelligence from multiple sources by clandestine surveillance — technical and human sources (agents they recruit) — for the purpose of identifying security threats to Australia in the form of politically motivated violence. Its first obligation is to report directly to the federal government, and it is under no obligation to pass on its intelligence to the Commonwealth or state police or to New South Wales Special Branch.3

  New South Wales Special Branch, on the other hand, in early 1978 is operating under pretty much the same system it has had since its inception in 1948 — that is, demonstrating ‘little evidence … of formal operating or reporting procedures’.4 The ranks of Special Branch are drawn from the police — officers who had left school early and worked their way up through the system. Officially its purpose is to ‘be aware’ of subversive or extremist activity in New South Wales5 and to report this information to the police commissioner. It is charged with gathering information on various factions within ‘ethnic communities’,6 both to prevent internecine violence and to give protection to consular representatives. In addition it is to provide security escorts to VIPs, both local and international visitors. If, in the course of any of these functions, information arises that would be of importance from a national point of view, it is to be passed on to ASIO through the commissioner of police.

  Unofficially, Special Branch is known to be a place of nepotism, corruption, ineptitude, ‘dirt’ files and good times. Apparently most afternoons a bar opens in the Special Branch office following a long lunch. One senior policeman told me they were very good at mixing martinis. Little wonder they were not in the office at 12.40 am when the phone call warning about the bomb came in.

  So ASIO is a national organisation in the throes of professionalising its staff, and Special Branch is a New South Wales–based outfit packed with working-class mates who enjoy a boozy, cruisy, working environment … hardly joined at the hip. Both, however, are deeply shocked by the bombing. Special Branch feel the sting of knowing they were ensconced in the bar at the Hilton when Suzanne Jones was trying to get hold of them to transfer the warning call. ASIO is even more disturbed — they had been assiduously monitoring ‘organisations of interest’7 by multiple means and had reason to feel confident that they would have had some forewarning of an attack of this nature.

  Sir Edward instructs ASIO to provide all assistance to Sheather, and on the afternoon of 14 February a senior ASIO officer provides him with a three-hour briefing.

  The officer brings Sheather up to date on the list of subversive groups identified as of potential concern to security at CHOGRM. This list had been provided to the Commonwealth and New South Wales police, including Special Branch, in the days leading up to the conference. The officer hints strongly that ASIO has operatives working undercover within these groups.

  The groups identified were:

  A. Demonstrators condemning Singapore’s detention of political prisoners, targeting President Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Malaysia’s Prime Minister Dato’ Onn. ‘Organisations which might act, although we have no evidence so far of interest, are the Overseas Student Service of the Australian Union of Students and a small group of anti–Lee Kuan Yew ex-Singaporeans resident in Sydney, which Singapore authorities have described as a branch of the Malayan People’s Liberation League (MPLL).’

  B. Militant trade union protests against the Fijian Prime Minister instigated by ‘Apisai Vuniyayaw Tora’, a militant Fijian trade unionist jailed in that country for illegal industrial activity. That said, ‘So far subversive organisations having influence in trade unions have shown no interest.’

  C. A number of members of the New South Wales Ananda Marga have ‘recently discussed the possibility of forming a delegation to speak to the Indian PM Mr Desai during CHOGRM in order that they may present pleas for the release of their spiritual leader PR Sarkar [Baba]’. If refused, ASIO anticipates them holding a demonstration at an as yet undetermined site. ‘We expect that final planning f
or the demonstration will not proceed until the return to Australia of the AM spiritual director Jason Holman Alexander.’ Alexander is also known by the name Abhiik Kumar.

  D. The New South Wales Railway Workers Union is threatening to stop the train carrying the delegates to Bowral. This is to demonstrate the shocking conditions for many workers at ‘a number of stations’. The idea is to stop the train at one of these ‘shocking stations’ and presumably shake these leaders to the core about the state of Australian railways.

  E. Three blank invitation cards to attend the PM’s CHOGRM banquet were found in a hotel room occupied by a person ‘identified as Helen M Bell (née Gundry)’. Neither she nor her husband are known to ASIO.8

  A bunch of foreign students, a militant trade union, a religious sect missing a leader, some pissed off rail workers and a woman who may or may not pilfer stationery. The immediate threats seem ridiculously benign, but Sheather decides to pursue them nonetheless. They are also the forerunners of a trove of less recent ASIO intelligence that will burst to the forefront of Sheather’s investigation in the next 24 hours.

  Wednesday 15 February 1978

  By the second day of the investigation, a pattern of events — a mixture of breaks, good policing, fatal mistakes, misinformation and disinformation — is established that will characterise and haunt the investigation for the next four months, until it becomes completely derailed on 15 June.

  The problem with misinformation is that it’s sometimes hard to distinguish from information. If you’re in Sheather’s task force you have to make a decision whether Mr Sutton, an explosives engineer employed in Adelaide, is correct in believing that ‘from details he has heard in news broadcasts’ the explosives used are the same as those stolen recently from his employer’s warehouse in South Australia 1500 kilometres away and that this is a useful lead that should be pursued.1 Similarly, is one to rely on the tip-off volunteered by Mr Robert Trotter (a draftsman and cab driver for Legion) who swears he saw Tim Anderson (PR spokesperson for the Ananda Marga and fellow cab driver) loitering in his cab outside the Hilton with a passenger yet with the lights turned off at 1 am on Sunday the 12th?2