Super-Security in Effect for President’s Speech

The Capitol is mounting extremely tight security, perhaps the most stringent in history, to guard against any terrorist attack during President Bush’s State of the Union address.

The Capitol will be cleared except for employees and press. No cars will be be permitted on the grounds. Streets will be closed in a four- block radius. Everyone except members of Congress will be closely searched and will have to go through two metal detectors before getting into the House chamber for the address.

Other measures, common when a President comes to Capitol Hill, will also be in effect. They include the use of bomb-sniffing dogs, searches of packages and purses and an increase in the number of police on duty.

The Capitol has been the target of terrorist attacks three times in the last 50 years, and Jack Russ, the House sergeant-at-arms, has called the building the “No. 1” target in the United States since the start of the Gulf War.

The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call quoted Russ as saying in a meeting with House administrative assistants: “We don’t know how we’re going to be hit. We just believe we are going to be hit.”