He paused not a moment in his speech. Later, strolling through the delegates’ lounge in his green fatigue uniform and highly polished black boots, he said, with a languid wave of his cigar, that the explosion “has given the whole thing more flavor.”

But the police saw no humor in the incident. Had the rocket shell crashed against the glassand‐concrete facade of the headquarters building, there would almost certainly have been casualties. The rocket launcher was found abandoned directly opposite the United Nations in a weed‐strewn lot on the east bank of the East River. The device consisted of a tube about three feet long which was bound by ropes to a crate filled with ballast. It had a sighting device, which, according to the police, was fixed on the misty silhouette of the 38-story United Nations Headquarters.

It was fired, apparently by a clock‐like device, at 12:10 P.M. At that time a noisy demonstration in front of the United Nations Headquarters was at a peak of tension. The crowd of Cuban exiles was hurling curses at the police, who, at the time were carrying away Molly Gonzales, the woman who said she wanted to cut down Major Guevara with the hunting knife.

The explosion and the outcry of the crowd marked one of the wildest episodes since the United Nations moved into its East River headquarters in 1952.

Inside the massive glass structure, most United Nations personnel thought that the explosion had occurred in front of the building, and that a bomb had been thrown by one of the demonstrators in United Nations Plaza. Few chanced to see the spout of water in the river off West 43d Street.