On Guard for the Games

By Susan Tifft

Be it potential terrorists or traffic jams, Los Angeles is prepared

It was a record day for disaster, even by the standards of megalopolitan Los Angeles. Early in the morning, Pasadena police cornered two terrorists in a catering office at the Rose Bowl, site of the Olympic soccer matches. A traffic snarl brought two major freeways to a steamy standstill, and a landslide smothered a chunk of the Pacific Coast Highway. During the Olympic cycling event, a section of bleachers at the Dominguez Hills velodrome collapsed, injuring 50 people. By day's end Angelenos had survived a bomb scare and a raging brushfire.

Well, sort of. Actually, the multiple calamities--340 in all--were fictional, dreamed up for Torchlight III, the third in a series of dry runs of the Olympic-security coordinating system. But for the law-enforcement authorities who went through the exercise last month, the hypothetical mayhem was serious business. Its aim: to give security agencies, ranging from the FBI to the Fullerton, Calif., police department, practice in operating as a unit before the July 28 opening of the 23rd Olympic Games.

The Olympic version of mission control is a draped cubicle deep in Piper Technical Center, a city-owned warehouse and heliport in downtown Los Angeles. Once the Games begin, representatives of all the law-enforcement agencies involved will staff the Pentagon-designed nerve center round the clock. Five large screens will project an array of security information, like the size of a traffic jam or the location of a hostage incident. Says Commander William Rathburn of the Los Angeles police department (L.A.P.D.), who will oversee the operation: " A civilian security coordination effort of this magnitude has never before been undertaken in the U.S. "

With good reason. The 40 training sites, 29 event sites and three Olympic Villages sprawl over more than 4,500 sq. mi. and are linked by about 150 miles of automobile-choked highways. Protecting the anticipated 600,000 athletes, coaches, dignitaries and tourists at each location, and in transit between them, will be a logistical nightmare. Moreover, unlike other nations that have been host to the Olympics, the U.S. does not have a national police force. At least 50 local, state and federal and nine private security organizations are responsible for guarding the Games. This potential jurisdictional tangle was sorted out on paper months ago; the agreements have been tested and refined by the Torchlight exercises. "The bickering has not happened, because all of these people believe we are on a noble mission," says Olympic Security Director Edgar Best, a retired FBI agent.

The bodyguard count alone is positively Olympian. At full strength, there will be 16,000 armed officers on patrol during the Games. Aiding them will be about 8,000 unarmed private security guards. Dressed in blue-and-tan uniforms, the private guards will monitor the Olympic Villages, event sites and hotel lobbies. They will also be on duty at the warehouses and shipping docks of the food caterers for the athletes, making sure that no tampering occurs and that delivery trucks are properly sealed.

The FBI plans to beef up its local cadre of agents from 400 to 550 and send in its newly formed 50-member hostage-rescue team. The California Highway Patrol will fatten its regional 1,200-member force by 800 officers and 250 cars to help escort athletes in buses and dignitaries in 5 motorcades as they cross various county lines. In addition, 600 Secret Service agents and about 175 bodyguards from the State Department's Office of Security will hover around 3 heads of state, foreign luminaries and their families throughout the Games.

At Los Angeles International Airport, the U.S. Customs Service will add 100 inspectors to its local 180 person force to speed the entry of foreign visitors and check for weapons. To expedite the investigation of suspected terrorists, U.S. Attorney Robert Bonner has assembled a round-the-clock team of eight federal magistrates especially for the Olympics. These officials will be able to issue instant search warrants and authorize wiretaps. They will have tape recorders at home so that assistant U.S. attorneys who are busy at distant locations or stuck in traffic can call in and get the rarely used telephonic search warrant a temporary authorization that will hold up in court until the proper paperwork can be prepared.

Haunted by the memory of the Munich Games in 1972, when members of the Palestinian Black September Movement invaded the Olympic Village and killed eleven Israeli athletes, the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee (L.A.O.O.C.) has taken special measures to protect the teams' living quarters. At two of the three Olympic Villages--on the campuses of the University of Southern California and the University of California at Los Angeles -- the committee has erected three concentric rings of eight-foot-high mesh fence. The middle one is wired with intrusion-detection devices, installed by the Pentagon, that sends out an alarm when a potential terrorist (or late-night reveler) approaches. The precautions cover a wide range: nine video-arcade games in Fluor Tower at U.S.C. will be removed to prevent terrorists or pranksters from hot-wiring an explosion.

With most of the Olympic sites located in his jurisdiction, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates has canceled vacations for his 6,900 officers, who will work up to 72 hours a week protecting the Villages, policing the streets and working inside the arenas. He has spent $800,000 on new equipment, including submachine guns with silencers and shoulder-held rifles for the department's crack SWAT (special weapons and tactics) team. One new acquisition: "Felix," a radio-directed robot capable of chugging up to suspicious objects and investigating them at a safe distance from people.

Gates' appetite for elaborate security has been the subject of a mounting feud between the L.A.P.D. and the L.A.O.O.C. The Olympic Committee has a $100 million budget, most of it tied up in individual contracts with state and local police departments. Chief Gates, however, negotiated a special clause in his $15.7 million pact, making him the final arbiter of Olympic security in the city of Los Angeles and making the L.A.O.O.C. liable for any increased costs. Last week Gates invoked the agreement and demanded more guards for the Olympic sites and Villages, a move that could hike his contract by as much as $3 million. The L.A.O.O.C. has so far refused to comply. If there is no agreement before the Games, Gates has vowed he will station the extra guards anyway and send the L.A.O.O.C. the bill. Says William Booth, a Gates aide: "Let the lawyers decide the issue later. But there will be adequate security."

Last May, when the U.S.S.R. pulled out of the Games, ironically citing inadequate security -- and 16 countries followed suit, Olympic planners became more nervous, not less. "It is just a fact of life that terrorist countries are influenced by the Soviets," says Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block. "And if terrorists do make an attack, the Soviets can point to it as a case of 'See, we told you so.' "

Despite the scale of Los Angeles, its security forces are not large by recent Olympic standards. At the 1980 Games in Moscow, 240,000 Soviet militiamen patrolled the streets and stood shoulder to shoulder at each event. Still, officials in the City of Angels feel confident they have done everything possible to prevent disruptions. "These Games are a celebration, not an international security event," says Security Director Best. "But you can be sure we are planning for a worst possible case scenario."

-- By Susan Tim

-- Reported by Joseph J. Kane/Los Angeles

With reporting by Joseph J. Kane