Liberty Statue Sabotage Plan

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30678, 18 February 1965, Page 13

Liberty Statue Sabotage Plan

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

NEW YORK, February 17. A 31-year-old Negro policeman acting as an undercover agent helped the police and the F. 8.1. to smash a plot to blow up the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell and the Washington Monument.

The policeman, Raymond Wood, an air force veteran, joined the militant “Black Liberation Front” three months ago. He gave police the tip that resulted in the arrest yesterday of three Negroes and a beautiful blonde Canadian girl as they prepared for a na-tion-wide sabotage campaign. The New York Police Commissioner (Mr Michael Murphy, said the gang had 22 sticks of dynamite which it planned to use to blow the arm and head off the Statue of Liberty—which they called “that. damned old bitch.” The arrested persons were Robert Steele Collier, aged 28, self-styled leader of the “Black Liberation Front;” Walter Augustus Bowe, aged 32; Khaleel Sultarn Sayyed, aged 22; and Michelle Duclos,

aged 26, a free-lance television and radio broadcaster.

Miss Duclos was alleged to have brought the dynamite from Canada to New York earlier today.

She is a member of a group which wants to make Quebec a nation separate from Canada. Friends of Miss Duclos said she liked to “attract attention in some spectacular way.” The Negroes are said to be pro-Castro and sympathisers of China.

Mr Murphy said the sabotage plot was formed in January after Collier met Ernesto Che Guevara, lieutenant of the Cuban Premier (Fidel Castro), at the United Nations. Mr Wood three months ago infiltrated the “Black Liberation Front” through contacts he made as a patrolman with the Police Bureau of Special Services. Early last month he went with Sayyed and Bowe on a reconnaisance trip to the Statue of Liberty in New York harbour to decide where to put the dynamite. Later, he carried out orders to get a number of technical manuals which he took to Montreal, where Miss Duclos lived.

Early today, Mr Wood met Miss Duclos in a Manhattan hotel and was told to pick up the dynamite from a vacant section in the Bronx.

Later, he met Collier and they went to collect the dynamite.

It was then that police made the arrests.

Mr Murphy called Mr Wood to police headquarters later today to promote him from patrolman to detective—and give him a 2000-dollar a year pay rise.