Bomb Misses Weinberger in Thailand

BANGKOK, Thailand â€”  A time bomb filled with nails exploded Tuesday about 20 feet from where Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger was to pass about an hour later on his way to attend a state banquet. Three Thais were injured in the blast.

Weinberger, on a five-nation Asian tour, was in his hotel about a mile away from the scene. No Americans were near the site, the U.S. Embassy said.

Security was increased and the banquet, which had been scheduled to begin 90 minutes after the time of the blast, was moved to the Hilton Hotel, where Weinberger was staying.

No group or individual immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which police commander Gen. Narong Mahanon called “an ill-intentioned act meant to obstruct the government’s reception for a foreign guest, the U.S. secretary of defense.�

The bomb, filled with nails and small machine gears, was planted in a parking lot garbage can about 20 feet from the auto entrance to the state-owned Erawan Hotel, through which Weinberger’s motorcade was to pass.

2 Taxi Drivers Hurt

The explosion injured two Thai taxi drivers--severing a leg of one of them--and a woman passer-by, police said.

The bomb also damaged two parked cars and blew a hole through a sheet of steel covering a bench where hotel and taxi drivers sat.

Earlier Tuesday, Weinberger, on a five-nation Asian swing, toured the tense Thai-Cambodian border, where he visited a village within artillery range of Vietnamese gunners in Cambodia.

Talks between Weinberger and Thai officials produced an agreement to begin negotiations on the stockpiling of U.S. munitions in Thailand.

The agreement was the target of a protest by as many as 150 students outside the meeting at Government House.

The stockpile, which will cost about $20 million a year to maintain, would be available to Thai forces in an emergency.

“The need (for the munitions) is so obvious to the secretary after being on the border and seeing how close the Thai people and the Thai armed forces are to a serious military threat,� a U.S. official said.

Weinberger is to fly today to Australia, winding up a trip that also took him to South Korea, Japan and the Philippines.