Blast Rocks London Club Frequented by Tories

A powerful bomb exploded Monday at an exclusive social club in central London that is frequented by British government leaders, and first police reports said four people were injured.

The police reports said 24 other people were rescued from the 159-year-old Carlton Club, a popular haunt of members of Britain’s Conservative government.

The explosion at the club, situated only a few hundred yards from Buckingham Palace, shattered windows in the elegant building.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility, but police suspect the Irish Republican Army, which has waged a spate of bomb and gun attacks in Britain and mainland Europe recently.

“It has all the hallmarks of a terrorist incident,” a police spokesman said.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a member of the club, was in Dublin to attend a European Community summit.

A spokesman for Thatcher, who narrowly escaped death when an IRA bomb blasted a hotel where she was staying for a conference of her Conservative Party at Brighton in 1984, said she will not cut short her stay in the Irish capital.

“She has no intention of going home early from the summit,” he said.

Early last year, the Cabinet entertained Thatcher with a private dinner party at the Carlton Club to mark her 10 years as prime minister.

The Carlton is in the heart of London less than a mile from Parliament and the city’s busy theater district.

Within a radius of a few hundreds yards of the Carlton are Piccadilly Street, which was crowded with tourists at the time of the explosion, and two royal residences--Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth’s official residence, and Clarence House, home of the Queen Mother.

The queen had left London earlier in the day to visit Iceland on her way to Canada.

The explosion rocked the club on St. James’s Street at about 8:30 p.m.

Police said the bomb was believed to have exploded in the front porch of the three-story club.

Cmdr. George Churchill-Coleman, head of Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist squad, said the charge may have contained up to 15 pounds of high explosive.