They gathered for a moment of silence at 1:19 p.m., the moment the bomb exploded.
The attack 50 years ago today was aimed at the heart American freedom.
It is aimed at the place where our nation was forged during the Revolution and where George Washington took his leave knowing the future of his new nation was secured.
December 4, 1783, nine days after the British evacuated New York CityWashington held a banquet at Fraunces Tavern in Lower Manhattan to bid farewell to his troops.
On January 24, 1975, a Puerto Rican separatist group, Faln, planted a lunchtime bomb that tore through the historic site, killing four and injuring more than 50 others in Lower Manhattan. Sixty-six-year-old banker Harold Sherburne, 28-year-old businessmen Alex Berger and 32-year-old James Gezork were killed.
“They were really attacking the American people,” says Joe Connor, whose father, Frank, was a 33-year-old banker who was killed in the terrorist attack.
“They were attacking Fraunces tavern, because that’s where George Washington took leave of his officers after the Revolutionary War, where the sons of liberty met and were the symbol of American liberty and justice and liberty, and they couldn’t abide it.”
A bomb explodes in Fraunces Tavern. Four people were killed and more than 50 were injured. Faln, a Puerto Rican nationalist group, claimed responsibility. (New York Daily News via Getty Images)
Joe was 9 years old the day his father was killed, and in the decades since he has dedicated his life to bringing justice for his father and other victims. He is the author of Shattered Lives: Overcoming the Terror of Fraunces Tavern, which is also now a documentary. Connor, along with other families of elected officials and law enforcement, led a mission to hold terrorists to account.
No one was ever charged in the attack, but the man believed to be the terrorist group’s chief bomb maker, Willie Morales, fled to Cuba, where he lived with an estimated 50 other defectors in the US. AND bill in Congress Named after Joe’s father and New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster, who was killed by Black Liberation Army militant Joanne Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur, who is also at LAM in Cuba, is demanding that Havana return the fugitives.
“It’s a very concise, clear Bill that calls for a return,” says Connor. “There was a mystique about the Castro regime and Che Guevara, some fanciful romantic views of these people. But they were nothing but Marxist thugs and had been waging their own war in the United States for many years.”
In his last days in power, former President Joe Biden Removed Cuba from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.
President Donald Trump immediately put Havana back on the list, and in his first term also vowed to pressure Cuba to return Morales and the other fugitives.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., attends a campaign rally for former President Donald Trump at Trump National Doral Golf Club on July 9, 2024 in Doral, Fla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
During the US Senate confirmation hearing, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for Cuba to cough up criminals who remain on the lam.
“There are fugitives from American justice, including cop killers and others who are actively hosted in Cuba and protected from the long ends of American justice by the Cuban regime. So there is no doubt in my mind that they meet all the qualifications to be a State Sponsor of Terrorism,” Rubio said. .
Over the past two decades, the members of the Faln have been given a pat on the back, as if the passing years have lessened their crimes. President Barack Obama handed down a 70-year sentence for Oscar Lopez Rivera, who was convicted of a seminal conspiracy and charged with other crimes. President Bill Clinton offered clemency to jailed members of the terrorist group, which eleven accepted in 1999.
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At a ceremony to mark the bombing, New York City Police Chief Jessica Tisch said the bombing was “terrorism in its purest form, intended to frighten, intimidate, injure, coddle and kill to achieve its political purpose.
“For 50 years, no one has been held accountable for this attack, which remains an open NYPD and joint terrorism investigation,” Tisch said. “Our department never forgets.”
Jessica Tisch speaks after being sworn in as the next commissioner of the New York Police Department during a ceremony at a police station on November 25, 2024 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Before the ceremony marking the bombing, there was an emotional lunch attended by family members, dozens of former FBI agents, survivors of the bombing and others.
Joe Connor’s son, Frank, named after his grandfather and studying to be a priest, gave the blessing.
“We remember the four men who were killed 50 years ago today in this place, all those whose lives were cut short by terrorism.”
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Joe noted that the gathering was held up to the door where the bomb, which consisted of ten kilograms of dynamite, was placed in an inexorable briefcase.
“Cuba has to eventually turn these people over, and the only way that’s going to happen is by staying on the state sponsor of terrorism list and keeping the pressure on Cuba,” he says. “This is the moment for it.”
