When in New York

He was to spend less than a day in the U.S., but every second of the Pope's stay was planned, programmed and protected by harried officialdom. It was, after all, the first American visit by any Pope, and New Yorkers became so excited that the police broadcast hundreds of appeals to them to stay home.

Preparations for the day began from the moment on Sept. 9 that Paul VI announced his acceptance of U.N. Secretary-General U Thant's invitation to address the General Assembly. New York City police and FBI men, worried about an assassination attempt, pored through their files on anti-Catholic fanatics, wound up putting potentially dangerous types under surveillance. Detectives made the rounds of clerical supply stores, warned clerks to beware of any suspicious purchasers who might want to masquerade as clergymen. New York's Police Commissioner Warren Broderick groaned that his force would "be taxed to an extent they have never been taxed before," deployed 18,000 of his 26,000 men to cover every inch of the Pope's 24.7-mile route into the city from Kennedy Airport, as well as each point he would visit. Overtime pay for the cops was estimated at $1,000,000.

Boards & Bomb Experts. For a man of the Pontiff's age (68), it was a tense and trying ordeal. To ease it, a special 1964 Lincoln Continental limousine was lengthened a full yard (to 20 ft. 10 in.) by a Chicago manufacturer and fitted with running boards so that it could carry 13 people--including six security guards. It was equipped with a battery-powered public-address system, a papal seat that could be raised seven inches, fluorescent lamps to illuminate the Pope, and a bubble-top covering (non-bulletproof) in case of rain. More than 75 television cameras and 500 personnel were assigned to give the visit the most intensive TV exposure ever concentrated on a single event. The three major networks swallowed hard and promised not to interrupt their coverage with commercials, a sacrifice of some $3,000,000 in revenue for the day.

Along Fifth Avenue, where hundreds of thousands of spectators were expected, store windows were boarded up to prevent breakage. All week bomb experts sifted through every nook and cranny of the places that Pope Paul would enter: the U.N. building, St. Patrick's Cathedral; Yankee Stadium, where he would celebrate a Mass of Peace; the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where he would meet with President Johnson; the Vatican Pavilion at the World's Fair. A heavy guard including cops and priests was set up at key points a full day before his appearance.

Orders were issued to close off every main road to the airport for one hour--commercial passengers notwithstanding --during the Pope's arrival. Police even arranged to have all commercial air traffic for that day rerouted so it would not fly over any New York City streets or buildings that were on the papal itinerary.

Behind Second Base. At the stadium, where at this time of year preparations are usually being made for a World Series rather than a world event, carpenters and clergymen moved in to replace the grounds keepers, carefully hung papal decorations about the upper decks, and constructed a super-secure elevated wooden altar behind second base, with fire-retarding carpeting on the 13 steps and extra steel reinforcement in the scaffolding.

By last week 90,000 tickets had been distributed for the stadium service, while exasperated Catholic officials estimated that they had been deluged by some 450,000 requests. The most frenzied flap over tickets came at midweek when the New York Herald Tribune reported --accurately--that there were still 650 tickets available to non-Catholics on a first-come, first-served basis. No sooner had the story appeared than the switchboard at the New York Chancery office lit up; for hours calls came through at the rate of one every ten seconds, while some 500 people queued up outside near Fifth Avenue. Finally, frustrated church officials impounded the tickets, parceled them out among New York City's 100 parishes, and told callers at the besieged chancery to get them from a priest in their own neighborhood.

The Pope's visit with Lyndon Johnson was to take place in the Waldorf-Astoria's nine-room Suite 35-A, which is always reserved for the President. Johnson, who had spent a good deal of time studying a handy little briefing book from the State Department on Vatican protocol (he didn't have to kiss the papal ring because he is a chief of state), would be only the fourth* U.S. Chief Executive to meet a Pope. During their get-together the mainn subject of conversation, with two interpreters on hand to make it clear, would be what Lyndon likes to call "that little five-letter word"--peace.

* Woodrow Wilson visited Pope Benedict XV in 1919; Dwight Eisenhower visited John XXIII in 1959; John Kennedy visited Paul VI in 1963.

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