The Gate-Crasher

The Christmas-morning quiet on Pennsylvania Avenue was sundered by a clatter of metal. Out on the White House lawn was an unexpected and most unwelcome package: a 1975 Chevrolet had crashed through a wrought-iron gate at the northwest corner of the grounds and screeched to a halt a few feet from the mansion's north portico.

Out stepped a bizarre figure who looked a bit like an Arab astronaut. He wore a white outfit and Arab-style head gear. Strapped to his body were devices that appeared to be explosives. He deposited satchels on the ground and then stood holding wires connected to the lethal-looking paraphernalia.

Secret Service agents could have immediately mowed down the intruder. But the President and his family were off in Colorado, and the gate-crasher was making no threats. All he wanted was to speak to the ambassador from Pakistan. So the guards waited patiently for four hours while the intruder delivered an unintelligible harangue. When Pakistani Ambassador Sahabzada Yaqub Khan failed to appear, the stranger asked the Secret Service to broadcast his demand for a meeting. The guards complied, and the man listened to the message on his car radio. Then he plucked a white cloth from his pocket and waved it in the air in surrender. The guards found that he was carrying no explosives, only emergency flares.

On the List. Their captive turned out to be Marshall Fields, 25, a college dropout and taxi driver who had been behaving erratically since his father died last May. The elder Marshall Fields, who had been an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development, had served in Arab countries, where the son became fascinated by the Islamic religion. He had been put on the Secret Service list of people to watch because he had sent packets to news agencies threatening some kind of dramatic action on Christmas Day. Some messages were signed in his own name, others "Merry Christmas." Fields is now undergoing a psychiatric examination at St. Elizabeth's Hospital.

The incident underscored once again the vulnerability of the White House. Last winter a disgruntled Army private commandeered a military helicopter and buzzed the presidential mansion, then landed on the lawn before surrendering. George Cosper, a Secret Service spokesman, said that "new technical devices were installed as a result of that incident." Now, Cosper acknowledged, "something stronger at that gate would, of course, have to be considered."

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