U.S. FLIES OUT 13 INJURED IN ATHENS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605260001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: February 4, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605260001-5
THE WASHINGTON POST
ART1CLE APPEARED 4 February 1985
ON PAGE - /3
U.S. Flies Out
13 Injured
In Athens
By Patrick Quinn
Associated Press
ATHENS, Feb. 3-Thirteen in-
jured U.S. servicemen and depen-
dents, among 57 Americans wound=ed when a time bomb exploded in a
crowded bar, 'were airlifted to a
U.S.- base in West Germany today
for treatment, U.S. and Greek of-
ficials said.
An unknown group, the National
Front, took responsibility for the
bombing and warned of further at-
tacks "against the Americans who
are responsible for the continued
situation jr, Cyprus." The claim
came in a call to the Eleftherotipat
newspaper.
The explosion last night was the
first reported terrorist attack on a
facility frequented by U.S. military
personnel in Greece.
Seven Greeks, a West German
and an Ethiopian were also reported
injured, Greek police said, when a
"powerful time bomb" went off un-
der one of the tables at Bobby's, a
bar in the seaside Athens suburb of
Glyfada. The bar is popular with
-many of the 1,500 U.S Air Force
personnel stationed at Hellenikon
Air Base next to Athens Airport.
Police searching the wrecked
saloon found "traces of a timing de-
vice," a police spokesman said. "It
was clearly a powerful time bomb,"
the spokesman said. "It was a mir-
acle that no one was killed."
A U.S. Embassy official said the
incident "was out of our jurisdiction,
and we.will assist the Greek gov-
ernment in their investigation only
if we are requested to."
The bomb went off at 11:36 p.m.
when about 200 persons were
packed into the bar near Glyfada's
central square. "There was an ear-
splitting blast, a cloud of smoke and
the lights went out," said bartender
Yannis Kaptanis, 24.
The concussion collapsed part of
the ceiling, blew the heavy doors off
their hinges and showered the
street with glass. Some patrons,
their clothes scorched, were tram-
pled in the rush to get out.
A doctor at Athens Hygeia Hos-
pital, where U.S. personnel were
taken for surgery, spoke of deep
cuts from flying debris and bad
burns. A spokeswoman at the U.S.
Hellenikon base said 32 Americans,
the Ethiopian and a Greek were
released after receiving first aid at
the base hospital and that 13 Amer-
icans were flown out today to the
U.S. Army hospital in Landstuhl,
West Germany.
[A Pentagon spokesman listed 61
persons injured, 57 of them Amer-
ican. His list included 34 Air Force
personnel, 19 Navy, 2 Army and 2
military dependents. None was
thought to have life-threatening
injuries, he said, although two of the
13 flown out were listed as serious-
ly injured. He had no names.]
A spokesman at Hygeia Hospital
identified four of the injured Amer-
icans as Charles Curmutt, 23, who
he said was badly burned; his wife
Carla, 20, also burned; Mark Kro-
mer, and Attile Downing, 21, of
Fayetteville, N.C.
Two Americans have been assas-
sinated in Greece within the past 10
years.
A group called November 17
-claimed responsibility for killing" t
CIA station chief Richard Welch in, 11976 and naval attache George
Tsantes in 1983.
November 17 takes its 'name
from the date of a student uprising
in 1974 put down by the then-ruling
military. The Greek government
has sought, to limit'the U.S. military ,
.role here, occasionally taking a crit-,,
ical public stance.
Cyprus, which is partly occupied.;
by Turkish. troops,' 'has: strained'
Turkish-Greek relations but has not
been a focus of U.S.' policy..Recent.;
U.N, efforts to resolve the island's
conflicts apparently failed,
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605260001-5