Jitters After a Bomb Blast

New security measures are put into effect at the Capitol

The bomb that ripped into a corridor outside the Senate chamber last week was eerily predictable. "I was sort of anticipating something," said a shaken Senate Minority Leader Robert Byrd, who lost his office doors to the blast, "especially in light of other occurrences that have taken place around the world recently."

The bomb, with the force of about two to three sticks of dynamite, exploded around 11 p.m.--in time to interrupt a previously announced night session on defense appropriations. Merely by chance, the Senate had adjourned early. Had the lawmakers lingered as late as expected, said Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker, "undoubtedly there would have been grave injury and perhaps loss of life." Instead, the explosion tore Byrd's doors off their hinges, wrecked a portion of the Republican cloakroom near by and damaged valuable artwork, including oil portraits of the legendary Senators Webster, Clay and Calhoun. The cost of the destruction was estimated at $250,000.

A group calling itself the Armed Resistance Unit took responsibility for the explosion. In a communique sent to National Public Radio, the terrorists said their motive was to protest U.S. "imperialism" in Lebanon, Grenada, El Salvador and Nicaragua. The FBI believes the group may be linked to nearly a dozen similar bomb attacks on public buildings over the past two years.

Strict security measures were put into effect at the Capitol the next morning. Lobbyists and tourists alike waited in line as purses, briefcases and packages were painstakingly searched. Security guards closed off to visitors all but four of the ten ground-level entrances of the building, and banned sightseers from the immediate vicinity of the congressional chambers. Soon staffers will need photo identification passes, and tourists will be obliged to remove their overcoats for a spot check and marched through a sophisticated metal detector. Outside, parking-lot traffic may be rerouted to thwart car bombers, like the one who destroyed the U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut.

Ironically, many of the new security measures were about to be put into effect anyway. The clampdown was prompted by an incident in October 1982, when an overwrought Israeli youth was seized in the crowded House of Representatives gallery while attempting to detonate a homemade bomb concealed under his shirt.

Last week's explosion was the first successful bomb attack on the Capitol since the radical Weather Underground took responsibility for blowing up a men's room in 1971,* but several other attempts have been narrowly averted since then.

Indeed, until last week, security at the Capitol was almost alarmingly lax. Police officers at various entrances checked only packages, briefcases and handbags, thus making it easy for a would-be saboteur to conceal weapons or bombs inside clothing. The gallery-entrance metal detectors, moreover, were far more primitive than those routinely found at airports, and incapable of picking up plastics or other nonmetal weapons or explosives.

Though visitors may resent the new restrictions, some members of Congress are demanding still more. Scolding that the measures are "inadequate and inconsistent," Missouri's Robert Young, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds, suggested that "the security around the Capitol should be as vigorous as that at the White House." He called a hearing this week to explore more stringent steps. The Senate, meanwhile, offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the Monday-night bombers.

*The Capitol was under violent attack twice before in this century: in 1915, a university professor set off a bomb in the Senate Reception Room to protest U.S. munitions sales to Britain; in 1954, Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the House visitors' gallery, wounding five Representatives. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.