Security Tracks U.S. Team in Japan

Part of the U.S. Olympic track and field team arrived Tuesday at its Japanese training base under heavy security.

The security measures began when the team left its Los Angeles hotel on Monday.

The team received a police escort from the hotel to Los Angeles International Airport and instead of being dropped at the normal departure gate, the party of 50 athletes and staff personnel was driven across the tarmac and escorted in a back door.

“It cuts down on crowds,” said Alan Gowing of the U.S. State Dept.’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security and security liaison for the U.S. Olympic Commitee.

“This way people aren’t wondering who they are and what they are, and it helps out airport security,” Gowing said.

Aboard the United Airlines flight were four sky marshals and another member of the State Department security personnel, Bob Liscouski.

After the 11 1/2-hour flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo, the group was met by Japanese security at New Tokyo International Airport at Narita and whisked quickly through customs, avoiding delays faced by ordinary travelers.

Then, the U.S. party was packed onto two buses and driven to the Nihon Aerobic Center with a police motorcycle escort.

From the center, the team will move into Seoul for the Olympic Games, which begin Sept. 17.

The aerobic center, which also is housing part of the British Olympic track and field team, and which will be a training site for the Australian and Norwegian teams, is protected by barbed wire fencing. It is a temporary addition just for this training period, and is guarded by about 150 Japanese security personnel from the Chiba prefectural police.

Gowing said about 40 teams of various sports from several countries, including the Soviet Union, will be training in different regions of Japan.

The Japanese government has provided $50 million toward the security of those teams, he said.

Berny Wagner, the administrator for The Athletics Congress, the national governing body for track and field in the United States, said the U.S team and all other teams “will be behind a tight security net in Seoul.”

“Here,” Wagner said, “the athletes are not prisoners. They are free to go where they want. . . . They are on their own.”

But he and Gowing said if the athletes wanted to sightsee or shop, it was best they did so in groups.

Otherwise, “it could cause serious problems,” Wagner said.

Gowing said one of the reasons for the tight security in Japan is the re-emergence of a terrorist group, the Japanese Red Army.

Japanese police have in custody at least two members of the Red Army arrested this year, and there is a possiblity “that the Japanese Red Army will set up an incident,” Gowing said. “They could take hostages to free their compatriots.”

For that reason, Carl Lewis, winer of four gold medals in the 1984 Games, and seeking four more golds this year, will be coming to Chiba this week instead of staying in Tokyo as originally planned.

“Mizuno, whose shoes he wears, told him they couldn’t guarantee his safety in Tokyo,” said Mike Tekaha, an assistant coach at the University of Houston where Lewis trained, and a U.S. press officer in Chiba.

“Mizuno was going to put him up in a hotel in Tokyo. But people were making threatening types of gestures, not necessarily against him, but possibly against the team,” Tekaha said. “So he decided to come here.”

Another large contingent of U.S. teams is due to arrive Friday. Only a few of the teams decided to remain home and train before going directly to Seoul.