FBI Steps Up Security for Thornburgh

Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, reflecting increased security concerns in the wake of the Colombian drug crisis, is traveling around Washington in a specially armored Cadillac limousine and has begun leaving his Justice Department office by varying routes.

“The FBI felt it was necessary for his security,” said David Runkel, Thornburgh’s chief spokesman.

The switch from a non-armored Lincoln to the heavily shielded Cadillac took place last month after Colombian President Virgilio Barco Vargas’ announcement of a crackdown on drug kingpins in his country who are responsible for 80% of the cocaine smuggled into the United States.

Takes Visible Role

But Runkel and FBI officials declined to link the stepped-up security to the U.S.-backed Colombian crackdown or to disclose whether any specific threats had been received. The attorney general has been very visible in praising Barco’s action and urging apprehension of top Colombian drug traffickers.

Thornburgh no longer leaves the department by the so-called attorney general’s entrance at 10th Street and Constitution Avenue, where he occasionally stopped to talk with reporters before entering his car at curbside. Instead, he travels by private elevator to the garage beneath the square-block Justice Department building, where he enters the limousine before it drives out onto public streets.

In addition, FBI agents assigned to his security detail lately have been seen carrying the kind of cases used to house automatic weapons--a step-up in their protective measures.

$200,000 in Travel

Responding to freedom-of-information requests, the Justice Department released figures Friday showing that Thornburgh had run up costs approaching $200,000 since October, 1988, when he began to use exclusively government aircraft for his travels out of Washington.

Thornburgh is the first attorney general to travel only aboard government planes furnished primarily by the FBI at a much higher cost than commercial flights.

Security also has been stepped-up recently for William J. Bennett, the federal drug control policy director. Unlike Thornburgh, however, Bennett continues to travel in commercial aircraft, although the Marshals Service, which provides his security, has aircraft of its own.

Speech in Honolulu

Thornburgh’s most expensive air trip, according to the department figures, was his Aug. 6-9 flight aboard twin-engine and multi-engine Marshals’ jets to Mexico City to take part in government meetings there and then to Honolulu via San Francisco to speak to the American Bar Assn.

That flight cost $46,792, with the salaries of seven pilots adding another $1,972.

Milt Ahlerich, the FBI’s assistant director for public affairs, said the bureau’s criminal investigative division had advised the Justice Department “that the attorney general should not fly commercial when government aircraft are available and practical because of security and communications considerations.”