On this day, April 20, 1984, terrorists bombed an officers club at the Washington Navy Yard. The club had closed two hours before the 1:50 a.m. blast and no one was injured. Minutes later, news organizations received calls from a woman who played a taped message declaring that the bomb was a protest against U.S. policy in Central American and the Caribbean.
The explosion was the fourth bombing of a government structure within a year, and the second at the Navy Yard.
Four years later, former 60s radicals — four women and two men — were charged with the bombings at the Navy Yard, U.S. Capitol, Fort McNair and four sites in New York. Some were already serving sentences for the Brinks holdup that killed two police officers.
-Scott McCabe
