Who bombed the Hilton? (4 page)

I am here to tell you this is absolutely untrue. For an object the conspiracists argue is deliberately kept from being emptied (implying its contents are somehow protected), an enormous number of people are free to shove any number of objects (including an enormous placard) into the bin, lean on it or use it as a convenient seat over a very long period of time. For the conspiracists to be correct, the following have to be lying in their statements: seven garbagemen (including a street sweeper), an accountant, two hippies, a signwriter, a father of two out for the day with his kids, an anarchist and the Hilton commissionaire. They also have to be colluding with each other, the police who have been told to wave away garbage trucks and, one assumes, ASIO and their mates at Special Branch.

Saturday, 11 am, 11 February. The next garbage shift commences. Neville Alexander Porter, ‘a married man [residing] in Sydney with his wife and family', a man who has worked for the Sydney City Council for 26 years and as a driver for 25, tells Sheather's detectives:

‘This shift included working in the vicinity of George Street, where the hotel is.' Neville is working with crewman Terry Sweeney. When they arrive at the Hilton at 1.45 pm, Neville states unequivocally, ‘I could see police and civilians standing near the entrance to the hotel … there were cars parked at the kerb also cars standing abreast forming a second
line. I didn't stop to clear the middle bin, outside the entrance to the Hilton, because I would have had to stop and form a third line of traffic, although I could see that rubbish was sticking out the top of the bin. For the same reason I didn't clear the bin at the southern end of the hotel.'
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At 1.45 pm, Saturday 11 February 1978 — 35 hours before the blast — the bin is full.

When Porter (not the police) rather civilly decides not to halt all traffic on a busy Saturday on George Street, operations are in full swing at Sydney's Hilton Hotel as staff and security prepare to receive the first guests of the inaugural Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meeting. This is the ‘biggest diplomatic summit in Australia's history' and most expensive political conference Australia has ever hosted.
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The guests include 11 prime ministers and presidents from the Asia–Pacific region who are due to fly in and spend a week discussing issues vital to the region. They represent over 737 million people. It is a big deal, not just because of the size or the cost, but because it marks Australia beginning to think about its identity geographically, as part of the Asia–Pacific. It's an opportunity for the country to assert its independence rather than always following the lead of its traditional Western allies. For Fraser the event is a potent step in projecting himself as an international statesman. However, it's a delicate balancing act — with
the exception of the notorious New Zealand Prime Minister, Robert ‘Piggy' Muldoon, none of the other leaders are white. Memories of the White Australia Policy are still fresh and Fraser is at pains not to present the country as the white big brother to other nations of the region.
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The summit is the inspiration of Malcolm Fraser — who has embraced Australia's biggest wave of non-Anglo immigration, including the Vietnamese ‘boat people' — and has taken years to come to fruition. Two days before the official opening the papers have headlines screaming ‘Security Like Fort Knox on Sydney Summit'. The man of most concern to security is the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Desai, who is placed under huge guard. It is alleged that the Indian sect Ananda Marga has been targeting Indian organisations around the world in protest over the imprisonment of their leader, Baba. There is excited reporting in the papers about federal and state police combing lobbies, about police stationed on rooftops, about the special anti-terrorist unit based at the airport.
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The Commonwealth Police, New South Wales Special Branch, ASIO and the New South Wales police have been preparing for the event for months. The security threats for each leader have been assessed and complex plans have been made for their protection. While the choice of the Hilton Hotel at the centre of Sydney's CBD as the venue has been roundly condemned
as a security nightmare owing to its dual entrances on two of Sydney's busiest streets, Pitt and George, it is, at this stage, Australia's most glamorous hotel. Within the hotel is one of the world's first X-ray security scanners and explosive-detecting machines imported from the UK. All who enter the hotel are required to go through it. All the VIPs are on the very top floors.
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Throughout the Asia–Pacific region, the leaders of India, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Nauru, Bangladesh, Western Samoa, Guyana, Malaysia and New Zealand begin to board international flights.

ASIO has supplied the threat assessments, and New South Wales Special Branch officers are assigned to the VIPs along with Commonwealth Police and New South Wales police, in addition to the leaders' own security staffs. The overall operation is coordinated by Superintendent Reg Douglas, the man responsible for the CHOGRM security.

The security protocol for the conference, ‘Policing the Hilton Hotel', runs to dozens of pages. Potential threats include direct attacks on persons, assault, stabbing and objects being thrown. Thus each leader is surrounded by security personnel. The second-tier potential threats exist within the hotel itself. The security checks start at the entrance and become progressively tighter as one ascends — the top seven floors where the leaders will stay are virtually impregnable.
There is nothing in this document that refers to checking exterior garbage bins for explosives.

Douglas has an enormous task. Approximately 400 personnel are associated with the conference. The 11 leaders are arriving with their entourages throughout Saturday and Sunday, along with 180 accredited Australian and international journalists. The Hilton also has another 400 to 600 paying guests who must be free to come and go. Security staff constantly search the hotel's stairwells and lifts and keep a watch over the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. The Hilton is also surrounded by businesses that have a brisk Saturday trade and the public need access to the streets and to be able to move through the CBD.

Cracks in the system start showing immediately. There are security breaches on Saturday when a young man on the way home from his gun club manages to carry his rifle all the way through the lobby of the Hilton. Orders get misdirected and people turn up at the wrong place.
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On Saturday five Commonwealth prime ministers arrive and are greeted by Malcolm Fraser at the George Street entrance on a red carpet that leads into the Hilton. All walk past the garbage bin.

The garbage bin is not emptied that night. Morris states, ‘There was no refuse collection on Saturday evening. This is normal council procedure, as they did not provide this service on ANY Saturday evening.'
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Sunday 12 February 1978

Dawn, 5.27 am. It's going to be a blistering day, 33 degrees Celsius. A Sydney beach day. As first light breaks, yellow crowd-control barriers are stacked ready for use, and the red carpet is rolled out. Police stand in serried ranks outside the George Street entrance of the Hilton Hotel, and police motorbikes roar up and down between the airport and the hotel as the first international flights touch down. Demonstrations have been threatened against the prime ministers of Singapore, Malaysia, India and New Zealand, and the press is due in force.

At 6 am Leonard John Stevens arrives on the street, broom in hand. ‘I have been employed by the Sydney City Council for the past 21 years as a street
sweeper. I have performed that duty in the George Street area for the past 10 years and have worked on Sunday mornings for the past three years.'
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Leonard not only knows the area intimately, he describes his work with a pride and a kind of forensic detail that is almost cinematic in its breadth. Imagine as I do now that there is a bomb in the bottom of the garbage bin directly outside the Hilton.

Leonard approaches it sweeping from a southerly direction. He sees cars parked on the kerb which ‘go right down to beyond a shop called Harolds which is a ladies wear shop at the northern end of the Hilton Hotel …', then:

Leonard's description of the bin outside the entrance to the Hilton being half full and Neville's statement that 18 hours earlier it had rubbish sticking out the top makes me believe that the bomb was placed during that period. This is pure speculation but I still think it was there — that firm, uncompressible object snug under a copy of
The Sun.

Leonard also notices as he crosses over to sweep the other side of the street around 6.45 am that ‘it looked to me as if there was a demonstration outside the Hilton Hotel and they were standing all over the footpath and naturally in the vicinity of the bin'.

As Leonard is busy sweeping, Jacques Stoupel, the Hilton commissionaire, emerges out the front at precisely 6.30 am. One can feel confident about this as his statement reads like a man who has been preparing for this — the biggest day of his professional life — for months. Much of his statement exudes professional excellence, except when he veers towards contempt for two things he clearly loathes: litter and unpalatable (presumably long-haired and unwashed) demonstrators.
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So there he is, Jacques, at 6.30 waiting for Prime Minister Fraser. Jacques is immediately informed that Fraser is running late. The first upset to a well-planned day that will lead to catastrophe.

The PM's late arrival starts to jam things up a little. Jacques has heads of state and their entourages arriving throughout the day. It's his job to keep things running smoothly along with the police, the hotel security and the hotel staff. Finally Fraser arrives at 7.15 and enters the hotel. Then at 8 am Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Jayewardene disembarks from a limousine. Everyone is smiling and shaking hands. Fraser emerges from the hotel entrance to greet him. They walk in together up the red carpet.

All is going well. Jacques doesn't mention if he spies a group of demonstrators starting to saunter towards the entrance. His focus is on the imminent arrival of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, whose flight SQ85A landed at Kingsford Smith
airport at 7.50 am.
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At Sydney airport the federal–state Special Anti-terrorist Unit is on alert.

A person who does note seeing the demonstrators is Keith Snashall, who is driving the garbage truck up George Street for the next scheduled refuse collection at 8.15 am. He also sees a dozen police, pedestrians and hotel staff and observes that the eastern kerb is ‘completely parked out' with cars, taxis and buses. Making this journey more precarious are the pedestrians weaving between these vehicles to cross to the other side of the street. As he draws parallel to the bin he notes, ‘I could see about one dozen demonstrators walking up and down outside the hotel.' He (unlike Porter the day before) decides to stop to clear the bins with the knowledge that in doing so ‘he will completely block the traffic flow in a southerly direction along George Street … halting the traffic for about three minutes'. However …

‘Just as my crew was about to leave the unit to empty the bins I noticed a young uniformed policeman standing outside the hotel on the footpath and he was indicating to me by using his hand that I should move my truck and keep moving.'
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The Prime Minister of Singapore, whom some demonstrators are expected to harass, is about to arrive. A garbage truck pulls up at the red carpet about to block traffic, a young policeman waves it on.