Dec. 11, 1964 - A death-packed bazooka shell was lobbed at the towering U.N. headquarters in midtown Manhattan from across the East River at 12:10 p.m. today as Ernesto (Che) Guevara, Cuba’s Marxist minister of industry, was denouncing the U.S. before delegates of the 115 member nations.
The shell was fired from Long Island City. It arched 850 yards across the water and fell into the choppy river only 50 yards from the Manhattans shore — and its international assemblage of diplomats.
The weapon from which the projectile was fired was a bazooka of a type made for the U.S. Army, a NYPD bomb squad expert said. Its range: 900 yards, the distance to the U.N. Building.
What saved the U.N.? The rocket launcher had been set at a 20-degree angle of elevation, which cut its distance. Had it been set at a 35-degree angle, the shell would have smashed into the building.
Anti-Castro Cubans were believed responsible for the attack, for a Cuban flag was found attached to the device from which the missile was expelled.
A futile attack upon Guevara was attempted from another direction almost simultaneously with the shelling.
Police had permitted about 100 anti-Castro pickets to demonstrate on the west side of First Ave. above 42nd St., across from the U.N. From their ranks, only an instant after the shell burst, sprang a 27-year-old woman armed with a hunting knife.
She darted through the police ranks, ran across the street, vaulted a low snow fence, pushed through shrubbery, and was attempting to climb a 4-foot-high brick wall at the entrance to the administration building when police caught her.
James Ginty, assistant to the president of the Dag Hammarskjold Fund, was about to enter the building when he saw the glint of sunlight on the five-inch blade.
“Grab her, she’s got a knife!” shouted Ginty.
Patrolmen Michael Marino and Robert Connolly grabbed her. The woman, later identified as Molly Gonzalez, proved to be 110 pounds of fury. She kicked, bit, and scratched. Before she was subdued, Connolly was scratched under both eyes and Marino suffered scratches on the hand and bruises on the left leg. Both were treated at St. Clare’s Hospital.
Miss Gonzalez was later quoted by the police as saying: “The knife was meant for Guevara. I meant no harm to the policemen.”
When Miss Gonzalez, first identified as Gladys Perez, was booked at the East 51st St. station, she gave several false names. She finally admitted she was Molly Gonzalez, 24 years old, and lived in West New York, N.J. She said she had come from Santa Cruz, Cuba, two years ago. She carried in a paper bag a bottle of detergent and about 500 carpet tacks, for which she gave no explanation.
She was booked on charges of felonious assault on a policeman, resisting arrest, illegal possession of a dangerous weapon, and disorderly conduct.
Later, when Guevara learned that his would-be assailant was a woman, he said he forgave her and remarked: “It is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun.”
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