Tokyo to Call 30,000 Police, Limit Crowds

When President Reagan arrives here this week to attend a seven-nation economic summit meeting of the world’s major industrialized democracies, he may get the impression that Tokyo is a quiet city with little traffic and hardly any people.

Because the summit comes amid heightened tension between the United States and Libya, threats from Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi to continue his support for terrorists and stepped-up sabotage by Japan’s home-grown revolutionaries, the police are trying to minimize the risk of attacks against Reagan and other dignitaries by thinning out vast areas of downtown Tokyo.

In some parts of this city of nearly 12 million people, ordinary citizens are likely to be nowhere in sight while the leaders are meeting; they will be almost completely replaced by about 30,000 policemen, many of them in riot gear.

U.S.-Libya Tension

“With mounting tension between Libya and the United States, we have to be especially vigilant,” a police spokesman said in a briefing given to foreign correspondents.

But the massive security precautions are more clearly directed against 35,000 members of local ultraleftist organizations that advocate violent world revolution.

Members of these groups staged 87 acts of sabotage last year, the largest number of attacks since 1979, which was the last time a summit was held in Japan. The cutting of communications cables serving commuter trains in November paralyzed the Japan National Railways’ inter-urban system in Tokyo and showed the vulnerability of the Japanese capital to attack by a relatively small band of determined terrorists.

In the last month, three of the most active groups have used rockets to attack the U.S. Embassy, a police building, a U.S. Air Force base and two palaces belonging to the Japanese imperial family. No one was injured by the missiles, but the new weaponry, launched from parked cars, has had an effect on security plans.

“We have had to change our strategy from holding a few important points to controlling vast areas,” a police official said.

Thinning cars and people out of the center of the Japanese capital appears to be part of the new strategy.

Police have gone as far as banning joggers from the area around the palace of Emperor Hirohito, as of the end of April, to keep radicals disguised as runners from looking closely at security arrangements. A three-mile-long stretch of sidewalk paralleling the 450-year-old imperial moat is a popular track for runners and the site of weekend marathons.

This year, Hirohito, 85, is also the target of terrorist activity. The government will stage a ceremony Tuesday, the emperor’s birthday, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of his ascent to the throne. Thousands of Japanese radicals have vowed to attack both the ceremony and the summit, trying to embarrass the emperor, whom they regard as a war criminal, and the government of Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.

Fear of a Roundup

The radicals are more circumspect about their intentions, if any, to try to harm world leaders attending the summit. Specific threats, they say in response to reporters’ questions, could result in a police roundup.

“We do not distinguish between terrorism against an individual and an attack aimed at disrupting (political) functions,” said Yoshihisa Fujiwara, who identified himself to the Associated Press as a ranking member of the foremost radical group, Chukaku-ha.

“Our targets are not limited,” he said at the group’s heavily guarded headquarters in northwest Tokyo. “Even with their martial-law-like security, the police will not be able to protect everything.”

To prevent any attacks, authorities will ultimately banish all parked cars for one mile in all directions from any building connected with the summit. Maximum range of the radicals’ new rockets is just under a mile.

Expressways to Be Closed

Almost half of Tokyo’s elevated expressway network, which carries about a tenth of the capital’s daily traffic of 9 million cars, will be closed while it is used by visiting dignitaries.

For weeks, police have reduced traffic to single files on many major thoroughfares while checking all cars approaching such key buildings as the state guest house and two hotels and six embassies where Reagan and the leaders of Britain, Canada, West Germany, France and Italy and European Communities officials are likely to stay.

Both hotels--the 2,057-room New Otani and the smaller Okura, which will be the headquarters of the U.S. delegation--will be closed to guests from April 30 and May 1, respectively. For good measure, another 200 rooms in a hotel that is uninvolved in the summit but that faces the New Otani will also be vacated on police orders.

Farewell Outside Terminals

Travelers departing from Tokyo’s two airports, Haneda and Narita, have been told to say goodby to friends and relatives before entering the terminals because non-passengers will be kept out of airport buildings for six days starting May 2.

Ignoring protests of bird-lovers, police have burned vast areas of vegetation around Tokyo Bay to deny cover for terrorists around Haneda Airport, which will be used by arriving heads of government.

Planes bearing Reagan, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, French President Francois Mitterrand and Premier Jacques Chirac and Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, as well as several dignitaries of the European Communities, will land far away from terminal buildings at a Haneda maintenance hangar.

Guarded Guest House

From there, helicopters will fly them to arrival ceremonies in a courtyard at a heavily guarded official guest house (the helicopters were purchased from France, to prove Japan’s willingness to buy overseas).

Non-scheduled air traffic will be banned from Haneda for days before the summit.

Police have visited every office of every building within view of every summit site. “They told us that we are not to accept any deliveries that week because vans will not be allowed to stop along curbs in our area,” said architect Tadasu Ohe, whose office is near the Imperial Palace. The emperor will give a farewell banquet to visiting heads of government May 6.

Although the massive precautions have alienated scores of shopkeepers, who have been ordered to close their businesses for security reasons, the majority of Japanese are showing remarkable patience in the face of what an outsider might see as a state of siege.

Questioned by Police

“It can’t be helped,” taxi driver Yoshiaki Hamada said. Hamada was questioned by police three times in one day because the rooftop light identifying him as a member of a chain of independent owner-drivers was missing.

“The police are worried that terrorists might try to stage an attack with a car disguised as a taxi,” he added.

Most of Japan’s 250,000 police have been mobilized one way or another in connection with the summit. In keeping with Japan’s strict gun laws, police all over the country have been instructed to visit owners of approximately 600,000 registered firearms before the summit to make sure that none have been stolen.

About 26,000 policemen guarded guests during the 1979 summit here, but this year’s meeting poses far greater security problems than that of seven years ago.

One Group Discounted

Although police admit that international terror is a source of worry, one senior official discounted the likelihood of any action by the Japanese Red Army. That group gained world notoriety when three of its members staged a suicide mission against Israel on behalf of a Palestinian guerrilla group, killing 24 people and injuring 72 in an attack against Tel Aviv’s Lod Airport in May, 1972.

The Red Army has contacts with Libya, but its last terrorist act was committed in 1977 when members hijacked a Japan Air Lines jetliner and held it for ransom in Bangladesh. The group appears to have little contact with radical groups in Japan today.

Even so, police have alerted Japanese diplomatic missions in the Middle East to increase security against possible terrorist acts while Reagan is in Japan.

The authorities’ most immediate problem has been the expected effect of tight security on a holiday period called Golden Week, during which many Japanese companies shut down for as long as eight days.

Arriving 2 Days Early

The holiday starts with the emperor’s birthday Tuesday and includes the anniversary of Japan’s post-World War II constitution on May 3 and Children’s Day on May 5. Although the summit starts May 4, Reagan will arrive two days earlier, in the middle of Golden Week.

“Traffic in Japan is normally heavier on holidays than on weekdays because people go shopping and sightseeing,” a police official said.

While the summit may prove to be little more than an irritant for most residents here, it has turned into a major headache for the New Otani Hotel here.

The New Otani is facing claims from owners of more than 100 shops that will be closed on police orders, and the hotel management is trying to get compensation from the Japanese Foreign Ministry for expected losses that one hotel official estimated will be “hundreds of millions of yen.”

Loss of $900,000

According to the official, who asked not to be identified by name, May 5 represents one of the luckiest days in the Japanese calendar. The New Otani, which had expected to rent facilities for 20 to 30 weddings during the holiday period, estimates lost income for weddings alone at nearly $900,000.

One shopowner in hotel arcade said it would be better to “hold the summit on some island in the Pacific where there are no people” than in Tokyo.

“Golden Week is my best season,” said a dealer who specializes in European antiques. “The hotel is (usually) full during Golden Week.”

A jewelry store owner said he expected to lose profits of nearly $15,000 during the period of the hotel’s closure.

Shopkeepers said they were told to close because the police are worried that radicals might disguise themselves as delivery personnel and slip through police lines. Police plan to restrict traffic to and from hotels billeting summit officials and journalists.

Radicals Growing Older

One police official said that the radicals pose a threat far in excess of their numbers and that the danger has increased as the radicals have grown older.

“About 80% of the activists are in their late 30s and early 40s,” said an official who specializes in monitoring the groups. “These people have no other career options. They may not have much support from ordinary people, but they’ve had lots of practice; they’re professionals.”

This became apparent in the recent rocket attacks. One was launched across the street from a large police station; another was fired from the parking lot of a government housing project where police officials live. The attack on the U.S. Embassy came from among illegally parked cars in an area of heavy police checks.

Although the rockets used by the radicals so far has been primitive--one recent attack on a U.S. Air Force base destroyed the launching vehicle without doing any damage to base property--the possibility that better weapons might be used concerns police officials.

Longer-Range Rockets

According to published reports, the radicals are experimenting with rockets capable of flying up to 2 1/2 miles. The explosive charge retrieved from one recent dud would have been enough to injure people within a 50-yard radius.

Many of the radicals have been toughened in fights against riot police outside Tokyo’s new international airport at Narita, where splinter groups have aided a small group of farmers unwilling to sell land for completion of two remaining runways. Six people, including four policemen, have died in battles between police and radicals at Narita.

Although officials are less concerned about terrorists infiltrating from abroad, immigration authorities have tightened checks on all foreigners entering the country. One foreign correspondent received a sudden visit from a police officer wanting to know the whereabouts of a house guest, who had given the correspondent’s address to immigration officials upon arrival. The policeman had just come for a spot-check.

Dripping Yellow Dinghy

Such thoroughness has characterized police activity in preparation for the summit. Last week, four policemen were seen at 2 a.m. carrying a dripping yellow dinghy across a street in Tokyo’s deserted financial district. They had been scouring the imperial moat.

When the summit gets under way, police will be armed with the latest equipment--helicopters, $39 million worth of new mobile computers, bulletproof limousines, a blimp and a recently compiled English-language phrase book to be used in dealing with thousands of foreign journalists.

Perhaps the most common word in the phrase book is cooperate, and it is invariably in the imperative form.

The police will find no need for such a phrase book in Japanese. In Japan, the government and its citizens often share goals to a degree rarely seen in Western democracies in peacetime, and the summit is no exception.

The Asahi newspaper voiced a widely held view when it recently said, “Should something happen during the summit, it would affect Japan’s international reputation, so we have little choice but to tolerate the overzealousness of the police.”