Security for U.S. Officials Beefed Up in Wake of Clashes in Gulf

The government has taken extraordinary security precautions this week to shield President Reagan, Vice President George Bush and other top government officials from possible terrorist reprisals in the wake of military clashes in the Persian Gulf and several terrorist incidents worldwide.

A sign proclaiming “Terrorist Condition Alpha. Threat Actual” was visible at the main gate of Andrews Air Force Base near Washington as Air Force One prepared to fly Reagan to a speaking engagement Thursday.

At his destination in Springfield, Mass., dump trucks loaded with sand and flatbed trailers were parked to block off intersections along his route in the downtown area.

“We are aware of the developments in the Mideast,” an FBI spokesman said. “Certainly, there is a heightened awareness in the FBI, and appropriate actions have been taken.”

The FBI and other agencies involved in the protective measures declined to disclose steps that they have taken. But the measures were hard for even the casual observer to miss.

At a Senate hearing Wednesday, Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and FBI Director William S. Sessions showed up not only with their usual complement of FBI bodyguards but also with at least a dozen other plainclothes security agents. The agents were so numerous that they had difficulty finding spots to stand along the walls of the jammed hearing room.

Officials at several security and intelligence agencies insisted that no specific threat had prompted the extra precautions.

“It’s our understanding that nothing specific caused them other than a combination of events, and the Persian Gulf is the lead,” one official said. “I wouldn’t overread it.”

Linked to Arrest in U.S.

One intelligence source linked the stepped-up security to the arrest last week on the New Jersey Turnpike of Yu Kikumura, a Japanese Red Army member found with three explosive devices in his car.

“The Red Army likes to do two operations at the same time in different parts of the world,” the source said. “That’s been their ( modus operandi ) all along.” He cited the bombing of a USO facility in Naples a week ago, for which a Japanese Red Army founder is suspected, as the other operation.

Counterterrorism investigators suspect that Kikumura was headed for New York City to carry out a bombing and that he and the Naples bomber were acting on behalf of Libya to mark the second anniversary of the U.S. air attack on Tripoli and Benghazi.

“If they had been been able to carry out both incidents--one in New York City and one in Naples--the message would have been very strong,” Oliver B. Revell, the FBI’s executive assistant director, told a security group earlier in the week. “(Libyan leader Moammar) Kadafi lives, breathes and is still active, and the United States is powerless to really do anything to impede his activities in the Third World.”

The State Department said that it had ordered increased vigilance at its diplomatic outposts but that it was taking no special precautions against terrorist attacks within the United States.

Stepped Up Alert

“Ten days ago, when there seemed to be an increase in terrorist incidents, we sent out a cable asking for a heightened alert around all our installations,” said Frank Matthews, a spokesman for the department’s diplomatic security bureau. “But that’s just our way of saying, ‘Be careful.’ ” That alert, Matthews said, remains in effect.

Times staff writer Michael Wines contributed to this story.