THE VENICE SUMMIT : Venice’s Unique Layout Aids 7,000-Man Force Charged With Security

The Italian government has mobilized 7,000 police and other agents to protect the seven leaders of the industrial world in their annual economic summit beginning today, but there are fewer security problems in the magnificent Renaissance city of Venice than in most other grand sites in the world.

Venice is built on a cluster of islands and canals in a lagoon off the Adriatic Sea. Only one bridge connects the mainland of Italy to the largest island of Venice. It is relatively easy for security forces to shut off entry to part or, in fact, all of the city.

Police demonstrated that ease by shutting off the small nearby island of San Giorgio Maggiore in the days leading up to the conference.

The leaders will meet in an antique monastery on San Giorgio only 10 minutes by boat from the famous Piazza San Marco. For centuries, artists and tourists have taken the boat ride for a stirring view of San Marco. But armed guards at the dock on the little island now allow no one to disembark but conference officials, journalists and residents.

Limited Traffic on Lagoon

Italian officials seemed most concerned about keeping the lagoon between the Piazza San Marco and San Giorgio Maggiore Island free of unnecessary traffic.

Just as it did at the last summit here in 1980, the Italian government at sundown Sunday banned gondoliers from operating out of their five stations alongside the Piazza San Marco for the duration of the summit. Frustrated gondoliers have demanded that the government compensate them for their losses, just as it did seven years ago.

“It’s like you would chase all the Yellow Cabs from the center of Manhattan for some security reason,” gondolier Franco DeZorzi complained in an interview with the Associated Press.

Despite the ease of traffic control, the Italian government is taking no chances, and its 7,000-strong security force includes sharpshooters, explosive-defusing experts, anti-sabotage specialists, cameramen, motorboat drivers, scuba divers and dog handlers. Small planes, nine helicopters and 50 powerboats are patrolling the waters that snake through and around Venice’s main island and San Giorgio.

Automatic Rifles, Flak Jackets

The Italians tightened their security in the lagoon and on nearby Lido Island on Sunday, the day before the summit opened. A dozen police with automatic rifles and flak jackets stationed themselves in front of the Hotel Excelsior, where the White House press corps is staying.

One reporter, who left for his usual morning jog before the police contingent arrived, found himself barred from re-entering the hotel because he did not have his press credentials in his sweat suit. After a long discussion, police finally accompanied him to his hotel room to check his credentials.

Some of the security forces are quartered aboard seven ships anchored in the lagoon, and 43 motorboats and eight ferries have been assigned to shuttle these agents from ship to shore.

“Of course, all the delegates will have their own security escorts,” said Mario Polverini, an Italian Foreign Ministry official, making it clear that the total security force on hand would be swelled somewhat by the foreign agents.

Yet Venice, in the days leading to the summit, did not seem heavily guarded at all. Few police or soldiers could be seen patrolling its canals and automobile-free streets or standing guard in the best-known sites of Venice.

Hotel Room Shortage

The churches, museums, piazzas and restaurants were crowded with tourists--though not as many as usual at this time of the year. The tourists, however, were not driven away by heavy security but by the shortage of hotel rooms, many of which were taken by summit officials and journalists covering the conference.

As a preventive measure, Italian police raided more than 30 houses in about a dozen cities in mid-May and closely questioned people regarded as terrorist sympathizers as well as convicted terrorists on parole.

Security arrangements were complicated somewhat by the arrival of President Reagan on Wednesday, five days before the start of the summit. The President had been scheduled to make an official state visit to Italy but was forced to cancel it because of the unexpected fall of the Italian government and the scheduling of parliamentary elections on June 14.

Reagan, however, did not cancel his trip altogether but came in advance of the conference on a private visit, staying at the Villa Condulmer, a posh resort hotel near Venice.

Hotel workers told Italian reporters that White House emissaries began inspecting the hotel last November and even bargained over the prices of double rooms, which usually cost 100,000 lire (about $85) a night, for the White House staff.

‘Crafty’ Americans

“These Americans are crafty,” hotel manager Paolo Magrino said.

But the White House, according to Italian press reports, invested money in the hotel as well. Some hotel windows, evidently including those of the Reagan rooms, were replaced with bulletproof glass. The White House also installed two new telephone switchboards and special alarm systems in the hotel.

The hotel’s 25 employees were questioned closely by local police, the Italian national carabinieri (police) and the U.S. Secret Service before receiving permission to continue working while the Reagans stayed there. Once the conference opens, the President will stay at the Cipriani Hotel on the island of Giudecca, just a splash away from San Giorgio. The other leaders are staying at other major hotels on the main island of Venice.

In a recent statement detailing security arrangements for the conference, the Italian Ministry of the Interior said it was setting up an emergency medical center with an evacuation helicopter on San Giorgio and that a naval generator barge had been moored at the island to provide emergency power at the conference should the regular electricity fail.