Who bombed the Hilton? Read Online Free Page B

all the leaders (including Desai and Fraser) depart via the George Street entrance for a cocktail party and after that a harbour cruise. The crowds, demonstrators and press depart.
    At 10.30 pm the leaders return to the hotel via the George Street entrance. The conference proper is to begin the next morning.
    It’s a few hours before the bomb will explode. Inthe days and years to come each minute will be sifted through minutely and contentiously.
    Sunday, 11 pm. Police officers Burmistriw, Griffiths, Hawtin and Withers start their shifts outside George Street.
    Between 11.30 pm and 12.30 am Monday morning the street remains moderately busy; people leaving a rock concert hosted by the radio station 2SM at the Opera House head up George Street, and Hilton guests and staff come and go. All pass by the bin.

Monday 13 February 1978

    At 12.30 am Bill Ebb drives the Sydney City Council garbage truck north up George Street. Alec Carter is on the back, working the compactor; Bill Favell and John Watson fetch bins and deposit their contents in the back of the truck. Ebb sees that the bins outside the Hilton on the other side of the road are overflowing. He drives on looking for a safe place to perform a U-turn. 1
    12.35 am. A caller to the Sydney Morning Herald asks to speak to an editor. Journalist Tim Vaughan takes the call. A man with a European accent says, ‘You’ll be interested in what the police are going to be doing down at the Hilton soon.’ 2
    12.35 am to 12.40 am. Criminal InvestigationBranch (CIB) switchboard operator Suzanne Jones receives a phone call on the 20966 line, Sydney’s main police line. A man with a European accent asks to be put through to Special Branch. She rings the line and there is no answer. Jones tells the man, ‘They don’t seem to be there.’ 3 All the Special Branch officers on duty are on the seventh floor of the Hilton — the restaurant and bar level. 4
    Ebb turns the truck around. It heads towards the Hilton. Carter and Favell clear the bins. To do so they have to remove the circular metal top and then empty the bin into the truck. The compactor is not on. The truck approaches the Hilton. Police, staff and pedestrians mill about.
    Jones puts the caller through to the CIB duty officer Cec Streatfield. ‘Listen carefully,’ says the caller. ‘There is a bomb in a rubbish bin outside the Hilton Hotel in George Street.’ 5
    John Watson picks up the bin just before the one at the Hilton. He tosses its contents into the maw of the compactor. Alec Carter compacts it, operating the levers as he stands on the tray. Ebb has his foot on the brake.
    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