Games Carry On After Blast Kills 2, Injures 111

A pipe bomb that hurled snarling shrapnel through a dancing crowd brought desecration Saturday to the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, killing two people, injuring 111 others and touching the event with a stain of terror that sent a shiver around the world.

Soldiers took up heavy arms at Olympic venues, and federal agents with bomb-sniffing dogs descended upon the Games, the first in the United States to know deaths at the hands of a terrorist. President Clinton vowed that the bomber and any accomplices would be found. “We will track them down,” he declared. “We will bring them to justice.”

In grand tradition, the Games went on. Seven hours and 35 minutes after the explosion, rowers raced across Lake Lanier before a crowd of 30,000. Three minutes later, badminton players began a qualifying round of competition before a full audience of 4,800. Olympic officials said total attendance was close to 90% capacity, and 80% of their volunteers reported to work.

These were the first deadly Olympics since 1972, when Black September Palestinians seized Israeli athletes in Munich during an attack that cost 17 lives. Then too the Games went on. Now horror came to a nation already stunned by the apparent terrorism that downed TWA Flight 800 only 10 days before. Nonetheless, said Francois Carrard, director of the International Olympic Committee, “the Games will go on.”

Reaction to the Olympic bombing came instantly. Pope John Paul II condemned it as “senseless violence.” German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, whose nation was darkened by the 1972 terrorism, called it “cowardly.” Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin said it was “barbaric.” French President Jacques Chirac said an “anti-terror” summit this week in Paris should search for ways to guard against bombings.

Across America, people recoiled in shock, then sadness. Terrorism is hardly new here, but this kind of Olympic terrorism surely is. In New Jersey, secretary Mary Klinck said it was hard to digest. Marvin Crow, a Texas businessman, told his brother-in-law in a note: “A few rotten people makes a good world feel bad.” Some people avoided watching television for fear that the next piece of news would be bad too.

Atlanta reeled after the explosion. Authorities checked venues and scoured the downtown area. They found 35 suspicious objects between the 1:25 a.m. EDT blast and 10:30 a.m. All turned out to be harmless, including an ominous-looking box abandoned just one block from Olympic headquarters. A morning bomb scare evacuated the Austrian canoe and kayaking team from its quarters at North Georgia University.

Bomb Scares

In the afternoon, there were three similar scares at Alexander Memorial Coliseum, the venue for the boxing competition. Shortly afterward, police evacuated hundreds of people from an underground transportation station and an adjoining shopping mall. They sent a robot into shrubbery near a restaurant in the complex. The robot exploded a duffel bag. Afterward, authorities said it had contained a steam iron.

The fatal incident began with a telephone call.

Woody Johnson, special agent in charge of the FBI in Atlanta, said the call was placed from a pay telephone at 1:07 a.m. EDT to 911 operators by someone who sounded like a “white American male with an indistinguishable accent.”

The caller warned that a bomb would explode at Centennial Olympic Park, a public area for Olympic entertainment, in half an hour, Johnson said. “We have a pretty good idea of where the call came from, and we are conducting an investigation around that particular information.”

Johnson said the caller did not claim affiliation with any organization or give any motive for the bombing. “I can’t comment further on it,” Johnson said.

Several hundred people were in the park at the time of the telephone call, clapping and dancing to a Los Angeles-based rock band called Jack Mack and the Heart Attack. Agents of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation were among those providing security. The agents said afterward that they were never told about the bomb threat.

One security guard, however, happened to spot a suspicious package in a green knapsack. The guard summoned a GBI agent. The agent, in turn, called over a bomb squad, which by coincidence was already in the park.

“They arrived within minutes,” Johnson said. “They observed the knapsack and were able to see wires and what appeared to be a pipe or pipes in the knapsack.”

The officers began to clear the area.

“Within a period of two or three minutes,” Johnson said, “the device went off.”

Hail of Shrapnel

Eighteen minutes had passed since the telephone call. Authorities were trying late Saturday to determine why the warning was not communicated from the city’s 911 emergency service to the GBI agents in the field.

GBI officials and others said, however, that they did not think the agents in the park would have acted any differently if they had known about the threat.

“Our people at the scene knew of the device and were trying to deal with it,” Johnson said. “Unfortunately, it went off in a very short period of time.”

The bomb, filled with nails and screws, tore apart 15 feet of fence and sent shards of wood and metal hurtling as far as 100 yards through the air.

Jim Hickman, who was in the audience, hit the ground. Most people around him were stunned. But 30 years in the Army had taught Hickman what to do. “I waited a few minutes to see if there would be something else, a second blast.”

Cautiously, he looked up. People were running. Then Hickman saw others on the ground who were not getting up.

Fifteen feet away lay a man with a gash in his head.

Others had been hit by shrapnel.

One woman was killed.

Authorities said she was Alice S. Hawthorne, 44, a receptionist for a cable TV company in Albany, Ga. Her daughter, Fallon, 14, had been standing next to her. Shrapnel struck the girl in an arm and a leg, and she was hospitalized.

Melih Uzunyol, 40, a cameraman for the Turkish broadcasting system, ran over to film the devastation. He fell to the ground. Turkish officials said he had died of a heart attack.

Injuries and Fear

Six state troopers and one GBI officer were injured, said Syd Miles, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Safety.

Most of the other injured suffered minor wounds or shock, officials said. Eleven people were hospitalized in all, most in stable condition. One employee of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games was listed in critical condition.

At least two people underwent surgery to remove shrapnel.

Police cleared the park and set up roadblocks to restrict movement in a wide area of downtown. Federal investigators, teamed with dogs able to smell explosives, hunted for other bombs. They found none.

In the gray before dawn, the park had an eerie look. A Ferris wheel near the park stood stock-still, and the area was deserted except for investigators.

A.D. Frazier, chief operating officer of the Atlanta committee, had been working late and was asleep in his office at Olympic headquarters when the bomb went off. It woke him immediately.

From his office, which overlooks the park, he telephoned Billy Payne, chief executive officer of the committee, and then officials of the International Olympic Committee. Top-level ACOG management assembled at the headquarters in less than an hour.

By 4 a.m., they had agreed that the Games would go on.

National Guard troops, 300 strong, already assigned to Atlanta for the Olympics, pulled out their weapons and took up places at several venues.

Authorities closed the main press center shortly after the bombing. Reporters tried to enter it anyway to write and broadcast their stories. Riot police used pepper spray to force them back. As many as 300 reporters massed outside, against a police barricade, until 5 a.m.

It was then that the Olympic officials called a news conference. The reporters were allowed inside to cover it.

“The International Olympic Committee expresses the deepest sympathy to all the people, all the families and all the friends,” Carrard, the IOC director, said. Then he said that the Games would continue.

A moment of silence would be observed at all venues, Carrard said, and all Olympic flags would fly at half-staff.

In response to criticism about security, Frazier said the park was designed to be a public place.

“The idea of the park was that it would be a place for everyone, for celebration and entertainment and, indeed, for fun,” he said. “It was conceived as a public place and a happy place. The fountain, for example, was designed for people to frolic in.”

There had been some early discussion about assigning heavy security to the park, including metal detectors. Frazier characterized these talks as “preliminary discussions” and said the idea of metal detectors and security fences was set aside in favor of an atmosphere of openness.

From his headquarters office, Frazier said, he often saw thousands of people in the park and in a street that surrounds the park. The bomber could have had as much access to crowds in the street, Frazier said, or as much access, for that matter, to crowds at a train station.

“We will be in consultation with law enforcement authorities,” Frazier said, “to decide what procedures to put in place [in the park], if any, to modify what procedures we have there now.”

Security Concerns

Some Olympic spectators said they were concerned about security even before the bombing. Francisco Melgor of Los Angeles said he and a friend had attended a basketball game Friday at the Georgia Dome.

“They weren’t checking people,” Melgor said. “There wasn’t much security. They didn’t even check my backpack.”

Melgor said he told a guard that all he had in the pack were dirty clothes.

“The guy said, ‘Oh, forget it.’ ”

Melgor said he had a ticket to track and field events today but that he had no intention of using it.

“First thing I’m going to do in the morning is catch the first flight out of here,” he said. “I’m just forgetting about the ticket. I’m going back to Los Angeles.”

Melgor paused. “This could’ve been worse.”

Times staff writers Ralph Frammolino, Jeff Brazil and Edith Stanley and special correspondent Mike Clary in Atlanta, and staff writers Norman Kempster in Washington and Richard E. Meyer in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

More Inside

* PETER H. KING--Unfortunately, the bombing in Atlanta was not a big surprise. A3

* TERROR LEGACY--Terrorism may bring temporary gains, but lasting victories are elusive. A24

* SUDDEN DARKNESS--A city’s night of revelry was plunged into chaos and panic. A28

* JIM MURRAY--The Atlanta bombing recalls the 1972 slayings of Israeli athletes in Munich. S1

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Breaching Olympic Security

At least two people are dead and scores hurt after a bomb exploded at Centennial Olympic Park. Most of the injured were among the many partygoers enjoying live music from a nearby stage.

The Warning

* A 911 call alerts authorities to a suspicious bag left near the light and sound tower.

* Roughly 18-20 minutes passes from the time of detection to the moment of detonation.

* Security personnel clear the immediate area of spectators, hoping to reduce death and injuries.

Where the Explosion Occurred

* The bomb is detonated at 1:25 a.m. EDT near the AT&T; Global Olympic Village, where throngs of partygoers were enjoying live music.

The Bomb

* Three homemade pipe bombs taped together with a timer device attached.

* The bomb was concealed inside a small bag, which was left near the light and sound tower.

* The bag also contained an assortment of nails and screws that turned into deadly shrapnel once the bomb detonated.

Security Zone

Local and federal law enforcement agents seal off Centennial Olympic Park and neighboring blocks, limiting access to investigators examining the bomb area for clues.

Sources: Times staff, Associated Press