What do you think?
Rate this book
Render Safe: The Untold Story of the Harvey's Bombing
In the early morning hours of Aug. 26, 1980, three men wheeled what looked like a piece of office equipment into the second floor offices of the 11-story Harvey’s Resort Hotel at Stateline, Lake Tahoe. The “machine” – as the men sometimes called it – was actually a homemade bomb filled with 907 pounds of explosives.
The bomb, designed with a dizzying array of triggering devices, could never be rendered safe, the bombers said in a letter they left behind that morning. The only thing authorities would be able to do is find out how to move it out of the casino to a safe place in the desert, where it could be detonated without destroying any buildings or killing any people.
But the only way to get that information, the bombers said, was to pay them $3 million in unmarked $100 bills. Harvey’s had 24 hours to act. “Any deviation from these conditions will leave your casino in shambles,” the bombers warned.
For the next three days, the normally bustling casino district of Lake Tahoe was shut down as bomb experts from around the country tried to disable the device and authorities tried to meet the extortionists’ demands. The bomb squad would later say that they had never seen a homemade bomb so complex and so powerful, and to this day it remains the most bewildering improvised explosive device the FBI has ever encountered.
The bomb, designed with a dizzying array of triggering devices, could never be rendered safe, the bombers said in a letter they left behind that morning. The only thing authorities would be able to do is find out how to move it out of the casino to a safe place in the desert, where it could be detonated without destroying any buildings or killing any people.
But the only way to get that information, the bombers said, was to pay them $3 million in unmarked $100 bills. Harvey’s had 24 hours to act. “Any deviation from these conditions will leave your casino in shambles,” the bombers warned.
For the next three days, the normally bustling casino district of Lake Tahoe was shut down as bomb experts from around the country tried to disable the device and authorities tried to meet the extortionists’ demands. The bomb squad would later say that they had never seen a homemade bomb so complex and so powerful, and to this day it remains the most bewildering improvised explosive device the FBI has ever encountered.
71 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 23, 2011
3 people are currently reading
6 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 12, 2023
I remember watching the news about this bombing when I was a kid. This was an interesting book but ends very abruptly and there could be so much more info shared.
August 10, 2020
I bought this book because my father was one of the people that worked on disarming this bomb. He was an electrician at Lawrence Livermore Labs in California and part of a team called NEST (nuclear emergency support team or some such thing). Anyway part of this team was activated, at first because they didn't know what the hell was in the bomb, and then for their technical expertise.
It is amazing how such a large, sophisticated bombing blew up a casino and nobody remembers it.
Anyway, enjoyable read but if the bombers had 1/2 the smarts on getting away as they did with building a bomb the story would have turned out differently.
It is amazing how such a large, sophisticated bombing blew up a casino and nobody remembers it.
Anyway, enjoyable read but if the bombers had 1/2 the smarts on getting away as they did with building a bomb the story would have turned out differently.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews