◆ SpookStack

Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5 SPECIAL EDITION and Lieutenant Jeff Altmire, who heads the bomb squad at Fort McNair, sends a staffer to pass out material entitled ‘Letter and Parcel Bomb Recognition Points.’’ Chief James Powell of the Cap- itol police speculates that someday an iron fence may be necessary around the Capitol—the last fence was torn down in 1873. Pennsylvania Avenue is closed during an evening rush hour when three suitcases are spotted on the sidewalk near the White House, Only clothing is found inside. The heightened awareness of terror- ism is most noticeable at government buildings, from the White House, Cap- itol, and State Department, where con- crete barriers have been erected to dis- courage car-bomb attacks, to the Pentagon, where tunnels under the build- ing have been closed for security rea- sons. Now it is rippling outward, touch- ing the everyday lives of many more Washingtonians. Cab driver Tom Sahr complains, ‘‘I used to hang around the Senate parking lot and cruise for passengers. Now I can’t get in.’’ Chris Vestal, a newsletter pub- lisher who reports on the Hill, says, “‘When I go to the Capitol, guards want to see my purse every ten seconds.’” A ten-year-old boy on the Washington-New York train asks another passenger, ‘**You’re from Washington? Will terror- ists blow up the White House?’’ And Judith St. Ledger-Roty, an attorney, re- calls a recent day when she walked by the Soviet Embassy on 16th Street, no- ticed a man talking to a guard at the gate, and thought about how easy it would be for a terrorist to attack the building. ‘‘It struck me,’’ she says, ‘‘that suddenly there were thoughts in my everyday rou- tine that terrorists can and do exist in this country.”’ “*Terrorism begins with the perception that it exists,’’ says Yonah Alexander. “If you think it’s here, it’s already al- tering your life.’’ Larry Smith agrees: ‘‘The terrorists have had a degree of suc- cess. They’re forcing us to conduct our lives differently.”’ As summer approaches, do Washing- tonians occupy a twilight zone between terrorism as a form of nightly television entertainment and the real possibility of an explosion at Metro Center? Terrorists have existed globally for dec- ades without launching wholesale as- saults on Washington. Why the big con- cern now? The answer, experts say, lies in the evolution of terrorism itself. No longer a product of isolated attacks, terrorism is now recognized as an outgrowth of the last 30 years of superpower confronta- tion. It is the warfare of the future. The future is here. Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RBP96-00788R0001003300@08STINUED NEXT PAGE -- TERRORISM -- For years, social scientists have said that in the nuclear age, the superpowers would avoid direct confrontation as too catastrophic. Instead, the major powers would support smaller countries in little ‘‘proxy’’ wars around the world. Now anti-terrorism experts fear the proxy wars will be carried back to Washington in the form of bombings and assassinations by terrorists doing the bidding of their governments. The biggest concern of terrorist- “The terrorists have had a degree of success,” says Larry Smith, the Senate’s sergeant at arms. “They’re forcing us to conduct our lives differently.” watchers in the US is no longer the Weather Underground or other Ameri- can radical groups, but pro-Khomeini Iranians and pro-Qadaffi Libyans, many of whom enter the country across the Canadian border. Kupperman, as well as sources at the FBI and local law-enforce- ment agencies, confirms the presence of large numbers of them in this country. “‘For the first time,’’ says Kupperman, “the infrastructure is here that will sup- port a terrorist operation. No terrorism occurs without surveillance beforehand. I’m talking about serious professional, politically oriented groups that are well financed. ‘‘The suicidal drivers are only cannon fodder in these deals. ‘‘My guess is you’re going to see a bomb against the State Department. As- sassination attempts against individuals are also likely,’’ says Kupperman. ‘‘In the nuclear age, the name of the game is not missile against missile,”” adds Yonah Alexander. ‘‘The name of the game is acts of terror conducted by ded- icated small groups that are supported by governments.”’ The key phrase of the new terrorism is ‘‘supported by governments.’’ Says Kupperman, co-author of Terrorism: Threat, Reality, Response, ‘‘In the mid- ‘70s and late ’70s, there was a lot of state-supported terrorism. For example, the Soviets provided training, weapons, and forged travel documents to terrorists. Libya provided safe haven for the Pop- ular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and encouraged Carlos (the legendary Venezuelan-born terrorist) to pull off op- erations. In no case did the country di- rectly manage the event. ‘“‘But today you have state-managed 26 JUNE 1984 terrorism. Which means that a national- level intelligence agency, the Syrian or Iranian government, trains individuals, designs and engineers a bomb, does the counterintelligence work, executes an at- tack, and lies back and denies it. You can’t deal with it in court, and you’re impotent to deal with it directly.”’ The first two Washingtonians to die from state-managed terrorism were Or- lando Letelier, the exiled Chilean de- fense minister, and Ronni Moffitt, a co- worker at the Institute of Policy Studies. In 1976 they were murdered by a bomb, later traced by the FBI to the Chilean secret police. Four years later, during the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, Ali Akbar Tabatabai, an anti-Khomeini Iranian, was gunned down outside his Bethesda home by a man disguised as a postman. The gunman escaped. Asked if the United States also en- gages in renegade warfare, Kupperman responds, ‘‘Not as much as we used to,” and criticizes the emasculation of the CIA during the Carter administration. But critics of the Reagan administration charge that covert training and aid to the anti- government coniras in Nicaragua is as much a form of state-supported terrorism as Libya’s backing of the PLO. They also contend that the covert wars are out of control and won't stop until the warring parties agree to ban support for terrorists. In the meantime, the renegade war con- tinues to escalate, which means the risks for the US are getting higher. Saul Lan- dau, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and a friend of the murdered Le- telier, explains: “‘When the US govern- ment goes into the Middle East and the guns of the New Jersey blow away a village of Lebanese people or the CIA bombs or mines harbors in Central America, hitting at people who can’t get back at you, sometimes the only re- sponse is terrorism,’’ he says. ‘‘I con- sider terrorism a terrible thing. But if you operate a state as a terrorist entity and wreak terror on other people, it is ulti- mately logical that they’re going to get back at you the only way they can.”’ That’s in line with a recent statement by Iran’s ambassador to the United Na- tions, Said Rajaie Khorassani. When asked if he thought Middle Eastern op- ponents of US policy would resort to terrorism in America, he said, ‘‘It de- pends probably on how far you go.”’ The purpose of most terrorist acts, however, is not retaliation for US foreign policy. Terrorism is an effective weapon for both pragmatic revolutionaries and fanatics. It provokes criticism of a gov- ernment that can’t protect its citizens from it. It focuses world attention on issues that otherwise might be ignored, partic- ularly if it occurs in a city with the in-