Who bombed the Hilton? Read Online Free

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 …
    â€˜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.’ 4
    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.
    According to Superintendent Reginald Douglas’snotes entitled ‘Policing of the Hilton Hotel’, issued on 5 February 1978 to all serving officers, this particular officer would have been in ‘A District’, designating the police stationed at the George Street entrance. Their principal job, according to page nine of the notes, is to report any ‘untoward incident’. They would be informed of imminent arrivals of VIPs and if any demonstrations are to be expected. Any eventuality not specifically mentioned was to be ‘dealt with as it occurs with commonsense’. 5
    Waving away a garbage truck to avoid the potential awkwardness of the Prime Minister of Singapore sitting behind its stinking rear while the Australian Prime Minister watches Snashall and his crew empty the bins on a Sunday morning seems like commonsense to me. This is the only instance of a garbage truck being waved on by police.
    The bin, however, is kept busy all day. Jacques Stoupel is vigilant about litter — he finds himself picking up refuse all morning in between assisting the reception of the prime ministers of Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Nauru. Just before lunch he picked up a ‘cardboard milkshake container’ and popped it in the bin ‘without any difficulty’ — noting that while ‘the refuse in the bin was fairly high … there was sufficient room for me to place the container inside’.
    While he has the rubbish under control, he becomes increasingly tetchy about the gatheringdemonstrators. He has to shoo away a couple who think it’s a good idea to sit down on the footpath blocking the entrance. One of them, Stoupel observes, has hair of a ‘dirty appearance’.
    The most prominent demonstrators are anarchists, New Zealand expatriates and feminists protesting against New Zealand Prime Minister Muldoon’s abortion laws and his locking up of ‘political prisoners’. Other protesters include members of the Campaign for the Abolition of Political Police and a few members of the Indian sect Ananda Marga, who are protesting against the imprisonment of their leader, Baba. The bulk of the Margiis, however, are stationed at the airport awaiting the arrival of India’s Prime Minister Desai. Photographs from the day reveal the demonstrators at the Hilton to be a rather relaxed bunch. They sit and stand in clusters in straw hats, summer dresses or T-shirts and flares, clutching hand-written signs and smiling at the police who hover around them.
    As Reg Douglas’s meticulous (but ultimately flawed) security plans indicate, the demonstrators are expected and, somewhat more surprisingly, are to be treated with civility, though no demonstrators are to be tolerated within the Hilton itself. If any are detected